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[learn to swim]

GUILTY ON ALL CHARGES!

[learn to swim]

Mar 15, 3:46 PM (ET)

By ERIN McCLAM

NEW YORK (AP) - Bernard Ebbers, who built WorldCom from a humble Mississippi long-distance firm into one of the nation's biggest telecommunications conglomerates, was convicted Tuesday of engineering the colossal accounting fraud that sank the company.

A federal jury in Manhattan deliberated eight days before returning guilty verdicts on all counts - one count of conspiracy, one count of securities fraud and seven counts of false regulatory filings. The crimes carry up to 85 years in prison.

When the verdict was read, Ebbers' face reddened. His wife, Kristie, and other family members broke into tears. Afterward, Ebbers and his wife hailed a taxi outside the courthouse and left without speaking to reporters.

"We're all devastated," said defense attorney Reid Weingarten. "It's very sad it came out the way it did."

Sentencing was set for June 13. Weingarten said an appeal was planned, adding: "We are obviously extremely disappointed with this verdict, but the fight will continue."

There was no immediate comment from any of the jurors. The judge offered jurors the chance to speak to reporters, but none accepted, and the judge instructed reporters not to badger the jury.

The conviction comes more than two years after an internal auditor began asking questions about curious accounting at WorldCom, touching off a scandal that eventually unearthed $11 billion in cooked books.

Prosecution testimony at the six-week trial portrayed Ebbers, 63, as obsessed with keeping WorldCom's stock price high, and panicked about $400 million in personal loans that were backed by his shares in the company.

Ebbers himself took the witness stand late in the trial, insisting that he was unfamiliar with the details of accounting and knew nothing about the fraud taking place on his watch.

The star witness against him was Scott Sullivan, the former finance chief, who claimed Ebbers repeatedly ordered him to "hit our numbers" - a command, Sullivan said, to falsify the books to meet Wall Street expectations.

Sullivan, who himself has pleaded guilty to fraud, admitted to essentially masterminding the fraud - but said he did it on the clear instructions of Ebbers, who ignored his repeated pleas that the adjustments were wrong.


With the entire telecom industry suffering a dot-com hangover, the fraud was driven by soaring "line costs" - the fees WorldCom paid to smaller local telephone carriers to use their networks. Prosecutors said the fraud stretched from late 2000 until early 2002, sometimes amounting to nearly $1 billion per quarter in hidden expenses and improperly recognized revenue.

Pressure from the loans, the money he stood to lose and the power of the CEO's job combined to form a "perfect storm of corruption" that drove Ebbers to commit fraud, prosecutor William Johnson said in his closing argument.

"He was WorldCom, and WorldCom was Ebbers," the prosecutor told jurors. "He built the company. He ran it. Of course he directed this fraud."

Ebbers gambled by taking the witness stand. He directly disputed the testimony of Sullivan, saying he became aware of the fraud only in the summer of 2002, after he was asked to leave WorldCom.

"He's never told me he made an entry that wasn't right," Ebbers said of Sullivan. "If he had, we wouldn't be here today."

The conviction completes a staggering fall for Ebbers, who took a small long-distance company in Mississippi and merged with or acquired ever-larger companies, earning him accolades and the nickname Telecom Cowboy.

He still faces civil litigation, including from the company, which backed up his $400 million in personal loans when Bank of America demanded more and more collateral as the stock price fell.

WorldCom, which was based in Clinton, Miss., was driven into bankruptcy - the largest in U.S. history - in the summer of 2002. It has since re-emerged as MCI Inc. (MCIP), based in Ashburn, Va.

The company struck a $750 million settlement with federal regulators to repay aggrieved investors, a small sum compared to the tens of billions of dollars of market capitalization that evaporated in the scandal.

Twelve former directors of the company, plus some investment banks that underwrote WorldCom securities and auditing firm Arthur Andersen, also face a civil trial brought by angry investors. That trial is set for late March.

In winning a conviction against Ebbers, federal prosecutors in Manhattan rung up another victory in a remarkable string of white-collar prosecutions that began in the summer of 2002.

Martha Stewart, Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and former dot-com banking star Frank Quattrone were all found guilty during that stretch - with the same prosecutor, David Anders, handling both Quattrone and Ebbers.

The prosecutors have also wrung guilty pleas from countless other executives, including ImClone Systems Inc. founder Sam Waksal and five other former WorldCom officials who agreed to cooperate against Ebbers.

In the WorldCom case, five executives, including Sullivan, pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. They have yet to be sentenced.


STORY LINK

[Lagspike]

Ridiculous. This is obviously prejudice directed towards the rich. If an ordinary person had been accused with these charges, and the same evidence presented in court, the jury certainly wouldn't have convicted him or her.

The evidence against Ebbers was weak. The star witness, Sullivan, the former CFO, admitted to having lied multiple times during the scandal. He was the one who actually "cooked the books," not Ebbers. Sullivan claimed that Ebbers ordered him to do so, yet the prosecution never proved it. In addition, Ebbers bought more WorldCom stock after he supposedly ordered the fraud. If he had actually committed fraud, wouldn't have he SOLD stock, as opposed to buying more?

Sadly, prejudice still exists...

[learn to swim]

Lagspike wrote: Ridiculous. This is obviously prejudice directed towards the rich. If an ordinary person had been accused with these charges, and the same evidence presented in court, the jury certainly wouldn't have convicted him or her.

The evidence against Ebbers was weak. The star witness, Sullivan, the former CFO, admitted to having lied multiple times during the scandal. He was the one who actually "cooked the books," not Ebbers. Sullivan claimed that Ebbers ordered him to do so, yet the prosecution never proved it. In addition, Ebbers bought more WorldCom stock after he supposedly ordered the fraud. If he had actually committed fraud, wouldn't have he SOLD stock, as opposed to buying more?

Sadly, prejudice still exists...

If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

[Lagspike]

learn to swim wrote:
If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

Sullivan admitted, under oath, that he lied on multiple occasions. Is it going to far to assume he lied to Ebbers?

[learn to swim]

Lagspike wrote: learn to swim wrote:
If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

Sullivan admitted, under oath, that he lied on multiple occasions. Is it going to far to assume he lied to Ebbers?

Doesn't matter EBBER'S WAS THE BOSS AND IN CHARGE OF ALL THAT HAPPENED. I have run a company. It was small but quite busy. The one thing you always know is the books. It is the bread and butter of your business and you have to know what is going on at all times with them.


TOTAL BS if he didn't know. He tried to remove himself from any culpability by adding layers but there is NO WAY a competent CEO of a compnay that big isn't paying attention to the books.

You have no idea what you are talking about. I will give you the fact that there may have been flimsy evidence but that doesn't matter - common sense goes a long way.

[Lagspike]

learn to swim wrote:
Doesn't matter EBBER'S WAS THE BOSS AND IN CHARGE OF ALL THAT HAPPENED. I have run a company. It was small but quite busy. The one thing you always know is the books. It is the bread and butter of your business and you have to know what is going on at all times with them.

Emphasis on small. In a large company, a CEO with leadership skills divides up the labor involved. The CFO handles the books and accounting; that's what the job is for.

learn to swim wrote:
You have no idea what you are talking about.

No, you don't.

[learn to swim]

Lagspike wrote: learn to swim wrote:
Doesn't matter EBBER'S WAS THE BOSS AND IN CHARGE OF ALL THAT HAPPENED. I have run a company. It was small but quite busy. The one thing you always know is the books. It is the bread and butter of your business and you have to know what is going on at all times with them.

Emphasis on small. In a large company, a CEO with leadership skills divides up the labor involved. The CFO handles the books and accounting; that's what the job is for.

learn to swim wrote:
You have no idea what you are talking about.

No, you don't.

I will not argue business with a kid.


When their stock was soaring and profits were through the roof it HAD to be know by Ebbers as to why. OTHERWISE (as I said before) he was incompetent and should have stepped down. Either way he is guilty. He was supposed to know, should have known and IMHO knew.


You are making assumptions based off of your great experience as a full time student? :lol:


I ran a small company but I have worked for quite a few big ones. Kid you have no idea how it works.

[Lagspike]

learn to swim wrote:

I will not argue business with a kid.


When their stock was soaring and profits were through the roof it HAD to be know by Ebbers as to why. OTHERWISE (as I said before) he was incompetent and should have stepped down. Either way he is guilty. He was supposed to know, should have known and IMHO knew.


You are making assumptions based off of your great experience as a full time student? :lol:


I ran a small company but I have worked for quite a few big ones. Kid you have no idea how it works.

I will not argue with a fool who doesn't recognize the facts dancing naked in front of him.

During the fraud, profits were not soaring through the roof. They were continuing at a regular, WorldCom pace. Without intense scrutiny of the accounting books, Ebbers could not have known about the scandal.

You say he was incompetent. If he was, how does that make him guilty? The CEO is not expected to know every single detail that occurs in the company.

You say you ran a small company. You also said you worked for a few big companies. However, you were never CEO of a large company.

You are making assumptions based on your pitiful experience as a small business employee and a large business pawn? :lol: :lol:

[learn to swim]

Lagspike wrote:
You are making assumptions based on your pitiful experience as a small business employee and a large business pawn? :lol: :lol:

Oh now my experience is pitiful :lol: Basing that on what? Same thing you are basing your work experience? Nothing? :lol:

So what is YOUR experience oh great full time student? :lol:

So why don't you educate us on what a CEO's job is captain know-it-all. :lol:

Face it kid - you have NO EXPERIENCE so calling mine pitiful is laughable.


And:

Quote: They were continuing at a regular, WorldCom pace

:lol: exactly. :lol: :roll:

[Lagspike]

learn to swim wrote: Lagspike wrote:
You are making assumptions based on your pitiful experience as a small business employee and a large business pawn? :lol: :lol:

Oh now my experience is pitiful :lol: Basing that on what? Same thing you are basing your work experience? Nothing? :lol:

So what is YOUR experience oh great full time student? :lol:

So why don't you educate us on what a CEO's job is captain know-it-all. :lol:

Face it kid - you have NO EXPERIENCE so calling mine pitiful is laughable.


And:

Quote: They were continuing at a regular, WorldCom pace

:lol: exactly. :lol: :roll:

I call your experience pitiful, because it sure didn't last long; you're obviously unemployed now. Only an unemployed bum can afford so much time on this forum, unless you're a minmum wage worker whose job only needs 3 brain cells.

And on the CEO:

During testimony, Ebbers stated repeatedly that he left the accounting to his employees. Sullivan admitted that as well.

You were saying?

[Lagspike]

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P112074.asp

Ebbers’ real crimes? ‘Ignorance and stupidity’
A jury says he's guilty, and now he faces up to 85 years in prison. But as witness to WorldCom's collapse, I can buy the defense case -- Bernie just didn't know.

By Richard Rhodes

Nearly four years after the first hints of fraud at WorldCom, a jury has decided the fate of former CEO Bernard J. Ebbers. His June 13 sentencing may very well mean the end of the phone company's fraud saga, unless you count business-school ethics case studies.

For my sake, I hope it is the end. As a former WorldCom employee, I'm ready to put it behind me. To be sure, I lost a relatively large sum of money in WorldCom, though it pales in comparison what was lost by some of my WorldCom colleagues who had been with the company longer.

But I don’t hold Mr. Ebbers responsible -- though jurors did -- past the point of being an exceptionally bad CEO and by not understanding what was transpiring around him.

I do blame myself for not acting upon my own intuition, given conflicts between the data I was compiling and what the company reported publicly. I blame former WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan for perpetrating fraud. And I ultimately blame Arthur Andersen for benign neglect, given that its auditors failed to catch even a whiff of the fraud being perpetrated under their noses.

The Ebbers-Sullivan dynamic
As part of the strategic business planning team, I compiled and analyzed a majority of WorldCom’s capital-spending figures and reported them to Sullivan. But I didn’t have access to the entire company’s figures. Sullivan never allowed anyone to have complete access, stating that some segments were outside of our concern. This always bothered us, but we simply lacked any way to get the figures.
Banks and insurers
check your credit.
So should you.


It wasn't until later we learned that he had motive to keep the figures from us.

Bernie, meanwhile, didn’t insert himself into day-to-day issues whatsoever, at least not from my vantage point. He did not access his e-mail often, if ever. The e-mail he did see was vetted by his secretary.

This is the Ebbers the jury heard about from his defense team, and it's absolutely the perfect defense simply because “BJE” -- the nickname WorldCom employees bestowed upon him in telecom's halcyon days -- didn’t know what was going on at the company he was supposedly leading through a period of rapid growth.

My colleagues and I realized Bernie’s role in the company was that of figurehead and dealmaker, with Sullivan providing more tactical decisions such as financing and transition planning. Bernie was street smart and very charismatic. Employees loved him. Sullivan, on the other hand -- well, everyone understood his stature and tried not to disagree too much with him. That would have been career suicide.

In fact, Bernie's reliance on the masterful skills of Sullivan to make major company decisions is really what built WorldCom. Remember, WorldCom was cobbled together from over 80 different companies that I know of, and there are surely some I did not know of. But after acquisitions were announced, Bernie simply wanted updates -- nothing substantial, just a "how’s it going" checkup before he went on to the next deal.

Acquisitions were Ebbers' focus. He may have asked in passing how certain issues were being handled, but he put eminent trust in Sullivan to do so. He would either throw in his two cents about these issues or merely rubber-stamp the decision. He knew his role, Sullivan knew his, and this is where part of the breakdown developed -- with a concentration of power in Sullivan’s hands.

Another issue that leads me to believe Bernie wasn’t in the loop relates to my preparation of special PowerPoint "decks" for meetings or conference calls he was attending. Often, we were instructed to simplify our detailed decks for Bernie’s sake, because he wasn’t concerned with details. This was Sullivan’s purview. If something didn’t look right to Ebbers he would ask for more information, and then we would report that information back to Sullivan, not BJE.

Prelude to a fraud
Often during my relatively short tenure at WorldCom I noted the aggressive treatment of expenditures to be included in capital spending figures. However, as my colleagues would attest, we always thought the final arbiter of any decision on the classification of expenditures was Arthur Andersen. They were considered the "conservative backstop" for very aggressive company finance groups. In my experience with Andersen audits at two previous employers, I came to regard them as conservative indeed. If Andersen approved it, then the decision was good as gold.

The first hint of fraud, from my perspective, came in April and May of 2001, as I eagerly awaited the release of quarterly numbers. We had worked hard to keep our capital spending contained, as it was still larger than anyone in the company wanted. But when the earnings figures were released, the capital spending numbers were substantially higher than the figures I had compiled -- an approximate $800 million variance, or about 160% above what my figures showed.

I was surprised. Though I knew there were other areas to which I had no access, never did I believe such a large number was possible. Our group did raise our concerns through the chain of command, but in the end we were told the system didn’t capture all the figures related to Latin American operations and other more “corporate matters.”

By no stretch of the imagination could those items make up $800 million. But one simply could not fathom that fraud on such a large scale was being perpetrated. I certainly didn’t; my group didn’t. We all tacitly believed in the system of checks and balances. Our reasoning was always that if Andersen backstopped it, then indeed it was correct. We were wrong, pure and simple.

Fraud revealed
Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that line costs were being diverted from the income statement to the balance sheet via capitalizing these costs. They should have been expensed.

It took time for the seriousness of the situation to sink in. I remember a weekly group meeting where we traded thoughts about the ramifications of the newly revealed fraud. What would happen? Would the company consider layoffs? First and foremost, the issue of the recent $12 billion bond issue was raised. What would be on the minds of Wall Street financiers? We knew the allegations were serious, but Wall Street loved Sullivan, and we thought the chances for WorldCom’s survival were quite good.

Inside the company, everyone quickly came to the conclusion that Sullivan was involved in a very serious way, given his tight hold on all things financial. He was aggressive and dismissive of others with contrary viewpoints. As for Ebbers, his aloof nature made many of us believe that he wasn’t in the loop -- and that if he was, he really didn’t understand the intricacies of what had transpired.

However, we just didn't foresee at first the fraud’s scope, and how it could bring the company to bankruptcy so quickly. We were a strong company -- $25 billion in revenue counted for something. What we didn’t count on was the way bond investors fled the company in panic. The lower WorldCom’s bond prices moved, the more the writing was on the wall.

In the end our group was decimated. Three or four were let go; another left for a better offer and because he did not want to work for a morally corrupt company. Two others found better offers in the healthcare business, and three remain at the company -- now known as MCI -- to this day. I had a budding newsletter business and left on my own accord.

The zenith of WorldCom was clearly over.

Richard Rhodes, a former Strategy Lab contributor on MSN Money, was Senior Specialist -- Strategic Business Planning at WorldCom. He is now editor and publisher of The Rhodes Report, a trading newsletter.

[learn to swim]

Lagspike wrote: learn to swim wrote: Lagspike wrote:
You are making assumptions based on your pitiful experience as a small business employee and a large business pawn? :lol: :lol:

Oh now my experience is pitiful :lol: Basing that on what? Same thing you are basing your work experience? Nothing? :lol:

So what is YOUR experience oh great full time student? :lol:

So why don't you educate us on what a CEO's job is captain know-it-all. :lol:

Face it kid - you have NO EXPERIENCE so calling mine pitiful is laughable.


And:

Quote: They were continuing at a regular, WorldCom pace

:lol: exactly. :lol: :roll:

I call your experience pitiful, because it sure didn't last long; you're obviously unemployed now. Only an unemployed bum can afford so much time on this forum, unless you're a minmum wage worker whose job only needs 3 brain cells.

And on the CEO:

During testimony, Ebbers stated repeatedly that he left the accounting to his employees. Sullivan admitted that as well.

You were saying?

:lol: :lol: :lol: Again - Ignorance. I am a Director of sales. I travel almost every week and work out of the house when not travelling. My experience has paid me well and I enjoy the benifits of the freedom it has given me. I have a home office and pretty much unlimited freedom of time. But I wouldn't expect you to understand how that works because you are clueless.

Again you have shown yourself to be absolutely clueless and just in case you were wondering - I am laughing at you not with you. :lol:

But hey, keep dodging the question - what experience do you have? What atmosphere have you worked in to give you such great business insight?

Or better yet what experience at all (except for the media) do you have to even be discussing this with me? :lol:

A CEO cannot just say "I left it to those guys". That is NOT HIS JOB. His JOB is to control those guys. Not on a daily basis but on a forecasting and company directional basis. That means reviewing the books. as a matter of fact that is the single most important job of a CEO - financial planning for future growth. Again - way over your head. :lol:

AGAIN I ASK - what is a CEO's job captain know-it-all? :lol:

Keep avoiding the two questions and keep attacking me it really is working. :lol: :roll:

And your article?

I think I already covered that:

learn to swim wrote:
If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

He was incharge of people's money - he needed to know what was going on - IT WAS HIS JOB.

[Lagspike]

learn to swim wrote:
:lol: :lol: :lol: Again - Ignorance. I am a Director of sales. I travel almost every week and work out of the house when not travelling. My experience has paid me well and I enjoy the benifits of the freedom it has given me. I have a home office and pretty much unlimited freedom of time. But I wouldn't expect you to understand how that works because you are clueless.
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
Sorry, but I'm the one laughing. Of course you're "Director of Sales". Of
course you travel every week. Yeah, that's probably why you're on this forum 24/7. You're so high up the corporate ladder, you don't need to worry about the "benefits" of spelling anymore.

I think there's a term for such highly respected people as you, with a lot of free time...let me think...hmm, what's a synonym for "single lonely 40-year-old with no life sitting around posting on forums who makes up identities to impress others?"
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:



Back on topic:
learn to swim wrote:
I think I already covered that:

learn to swim wrote:
If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

He was incharge of people's money - he needed to know what was going on - IT WAS HIS JOB.
Wrong! Both Ebbers and Sullivan stated that Ebbers left the accounting books to his underlings. Read the MSN Money article. If he didn't look at the books, how could he know the existence of fraud?

And, back to one of my original points:
Ebbers bought stock after the Sullivan cooked the books. If he knew about it, WHY WOULD HE BUY MILLIONS MORE OF STOCK?

[learn to swim]

Lagspike wrote: learn to swim wrote:
:lol: :lol: :lol: Again - Ignorance. I am a Director of sales. I travel almost every week and work out of the house when not traveling. My experience has paid me well and I enjoy the benifits of the freedom it has given me. I have a home office and pretty much unlimited freedom of time. But I wouldn't expect you to understand how that works because you are clueless.
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
Sorry, but I'm the one laughing. Of course you're "Director of Sales". Of
course you travel every week. Yeah, that's probably why you're on this forum 24/7. You're so high up the corporate ladder, you don't need to worry about the "benefits" of spelling anymore.

I think there's a term for such highly respected people as you, with a lot of free time...let me think...hmm, what's a synonym for "single lonely 40-year-old with no life sitting around posting on forums who makes up identities to impress others?"
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


Email this thread to Endersshadow. I give you permission to see every single IP address I use. Pay particular attention to the Sprint PCS ones and the Hilton / Hampton Inn ones. :wink:

And I have posted my picture along with my wife on this forum with proof it was me by taking requests for what kind of picture is wanted. :lol:

I have nothing to hide from you kid. And you keep evading the question - what experience do you have? (except for a newspaper article?)

Ignorance is bordering stupidity at this point but keep going - maybe no one will notice. And the whole misspelling - Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you got me. :roll:


Lagspike wrote: Back on topic:
learn to swim wrote:
I think I already covered that:

learn to swim wrote:
If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

He was in charge of people's money - he needed to know what was going on - IT WAS HIS JOB.
Wrong! Both Ebbers and Sullivan stated that Ebbers left the accounting books to his underlings. Read the MSN Money article. If he didn't look at the books, how could he know the existence of fraud?

And, back to one of my original points:
Ebbers bought stock after the Sullivan cooked the books. If he knew about it, WHY WOULD HE BUY MILLIONS MORE OF STOCK?

Hmmm.. To cover up what was going down? To over inflate the stock? Because HE WAS STUPID?


Pick one - I don't care. But you cannot make the defense that it isn't his fault because he was stupid. I know this may be hard for your little full time student brain to comprehend but if you let him go because "he didn't know" then what is to stop all the rest from raping a company and saying "I didn't know"? It would be open season.

Do you realize what a CEO's job is? I keep asking but you fail to answer. He is in charge of millions of people's money and it is HIS JOB to know. If he doesn't it is negligence. I think he was half stupid and half in on it. You cannot (if you know anything about business) say he didn't know (at least suspect) something was happening. Reread your article. Stupidity doesn't get you off. It doesn't get doctors off, it doesn't get policemen off and it sure as hell doesn't get a CEO off. It was his job and if you had ANY clue about what you were talking about you would understand but you obviously don't.

[SideTraKd]

Has anyone noticed that the Democrats who are always talking about how Bush is so cozy with corporate "cronies", and always bringing up Worldcom and Enron as failures of the Bush administration are suddenly silent on this issue now that people are getting sentenced to prison?

:think:

[TheCreepyApostate]

learn to swim wrote: Lagspike wrote: learn to swim wrote:
:lol: :lol: :lol: Again - Ignorance. I am a Director of sales. I travel almost every week and work out of the house when not traveling. My experience has paid me well and I enjoy the benifits of the freedom it has given me. I have a home office and pretty much unlimited freedom of time. But I wouldn't expect you to understand how that works because you are clueless.
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
Sorry, but I'm the one laughing. Of course you're "Director of Sales". Of
course you travel every week. Yeah, that's probably why you're on this forum 24/7. You're so high up the corporate ladder, you don't need to worry about the "benefits" of spelling anymore.

I think there's a term for such highly respected people as you, with a lot of free time...let me think...hmm, what's a synonym for "single lonely 40-year-old with no life sitting around posting on forums who makes up identities to impress others?"
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


Email this thread to Endersshadow. I give you permission to see every single IP address I use. Pay particular attention to the Sprint PCS ones and the Hilton / Hampton Inn ones. :wink:

And I have posted my picture along with my wife on this forum with proof it was me by taking requests for what kind of picture is wanted. :lol:

I have nothing to hide from you kid. And you keep evading the question - what experience do you have? (except for a newspaper article?)

Ignorance is bordering stupidity at this point but keep going - maybe no one will notice. And the whole misspelling - Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you got me. :roll:


Lagspike wrote: Back on topic:
learn to swim wrote:
I think I already covered that:

learn to swim wrote:
If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

He was in charge of people's money - he needed to know what was going on - IT WAS HIS JOB.
Wrong! Both Ebbers and Sullivan stated that Ebbers left the accounting books to his underlings. Read the MSN Money article. If he didn't look at the books, how could he know the existence of fraud?

And, back to one of my original points:
Ebbers bought stock after the Sullivan cooked the books. If he knew about it, WHY WOULD HE BUY MILLIONS MORE OF STOCK?

Hmmm.. To cover up what was going down? To over inflate the stock? Because HE WAS STUPID?


Pick one - I don't care. But you cannot make the defense that it isn't his fault because he was stupid. I know this may be hard for your little full time student brain to comprehend but if you let him go because "he didn't know" then what is to stop all the rest from raping a company and saying "I didn't know"? It would be open season.

Do you realize what a CEO's job is? I keep asking but you fail to answer. He is in charge of millions of people's money and it is HIS JOB to know. If he doesn't it is negligence. I think he was half stupid and half in on it. You cannot (if you know anything about business) say he didn't know (at least suspect) something was happening. Reread your article. Stupidity doesn't get you off. It doesn't get doctors off, it doesn't get policemen off and it sure as hell doesn't get a CEO off. It was his job and if you had ANY clue about what you were talking about you would understand but you obviously don't.

What about that Red Roof Inn that comes up every week on the same day for two hours in the Red Light district??

[learn to swim]

SideTraKd wrote: Has anyone noticed that the Democrats who are always talking about how Bush is so cozy with corporate "cronies", and always bringing up Worldcom and Enron as failures of the Bush administration are suddenly silent on this issue now that people are getting sentenced to prison?

:think:

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! :lol:

[Coral]

learn to swim wrote: Lagspike wrote: Ridiculous. This is obviously prejudice directed towards the rich. If an ordinary person had been accused with these charges, and the same evidence presented in court, the jury certainly wouldn't have convicted him or her.

The evidence against Ebbers was weak. The star witness, Sullivan, the former CFO, admitted to having lied multiple times during the scandal. He was the one who actually "cooked the books," not Ebbers. Sullivan claimed that Ebbers ordered him to do so, yet the prosecution never proved it. In addition, Ebbers bought more WorldCom stock after he supposedly ordered the fraud. If he had actually committed fraud, wouldn't have he SOLD stock, as opposed to buying more?

Sadly, prejudice still exists...

If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

Isn't that true. Even a monkey could figure out something didn't add up, by 11 billion.

Who's next on the list? When does that Enron character go to the bin?

[learn to swim]

Coral wrote: learn to swim wrote: Lagspike wrote: Ridiculous. This is obviously prejudice directed towards the rich. If an ordinary person had been accused with these charges, and the same evidence presented in court, the jury certainly wouldn't have convicted him or her.

The evidence against Ebbers was weak. The star witness, Sullivan, the former CFO, admitted to having lied multiple times during the scandal. He was the one who actually "cooked the books," not Ebbers. Sullivan claimed that Ebbers ordered him to do so, yet the prosecution never proved it. In addition, Ebbers bought more WorldCom stock after he supposedly ordered the fraud. If he had actually committed fraud, wouldn't have he SOLD stock, as opposed to buying more?

Sadly, prejudice still exists...

If he didn't know what was going on he is guilty of stupidity which is even worse because he should have stepped down due to incompetence. No way in hell he didn't know what was happening.

Isn't that true. Even a monkey could figure out something didn't add up, by 11 billion.

Who's next on the list? When does that Enron character go to the bin?

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING

We have a winner. Thank you for bringing sanity to the discussion. :lol: