The long and winding appeals road for Bernard Ebbers appears to have come to an end, after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the former WorldCom Inc. chief executive.
Two years ago, Ebbers was convicted by a federal jury on nine counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and other charges relating to the $11-billion accounting fraud that lead to the telecommunications company’s July 2002 bankruptcy.
He reported to a federal prison in Louisiana last fall to begin serving a 25-year sentence.
In appealing to the Supreme Court, attorneys for Ebbers argued that the original trial judge should have required the government to grant immunity to a trio of prospective defense witnesses and was wrong to instruct the jury that it could convict Ebbers on the basis that he engaged in “conscious avoidance” of fraud at the company.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York rejected a similar appeal last summer and the Supreme Court justices denied the appeal without any additional comment or recorded dissent.
