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Jury Convicts Ebbers on All Fraud Charges

After eight days of deliberations, a federal jury in New York finds the former head of WorldCom guilty of all of the charges against him. The jury returned guilty verdicts against Bernard Ebbers on one count of conspiracy, one count of securities fraud and multiple counts of filing false documents.

The verdict against the 63-year-old Ebbers comes more than two years after an internal audit at the telecommunications company triggered one of the biggest collapses in U.S. corporate history.

During a six-week trial, prosecutors portrayed Ebbers as obsessed with the company's stock price. Ebbers' lawyer meanwhile, had sought to depict his client as someone who was out of touch with day-to-day operations at the company. Ebbers helped grow WorldCom from a small Mississippi long-distance company to a telecommunications giant. Sentencing is set for June.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Jim Zarroli is an NPR correspondent based in New York. He covers economics and business news.
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