New York (May 26, 2004) - As if the fraud and conspiracy charges weren't bad enough, Bernard Ebbers, the former chief of bankrupt telecommunications firm WorldCom, now faces charges of having filed false statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A grand jury in Manhattan handed up the six-count indictment on Monday, charging Ebbers with false filings in six quarters in 2001 and 2002. The original fraud and conspiracy charges filed against him in March included one count of false filing, for a form filed in late 2000. Ebbers was forced out of WorldCom in the spring of 2002, just before an $11 billion accounting fraud - the largest ever -- drove the company into the bankruptcy from which it has only recently emerged, renamed MCI.
Ebbers pled not guilty to earlier charges, which were brought after ex-WorldCom chief financial officer Scott Sullivan pled guilty to his own fraud charges and agreed to testify against his former boss.
-- WebCPA staff
