CLEANING UP THE MESS LEFT BEHIND:

Prison for WorldCom accountant, probation for another (ERIN McCLAM, August 6, 2005, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

An accounting executive who made some fraudulent entries in the books at WorldCom was sentenced Friday to five months in prison and five months of house arrest.

Betty Vinson, 49, who said she was pressured by superiors to make the false entries, had hoped to avoid prison time because she cooperated with the government in its prosecution of ex-CEO Bernard Ebbers.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones noted Vinson was among the lowest-ranking members of the conspiracy that led to the $11 billion fraud that sank the telecommunications company in 2002. It emerged from bankruptcy as MCI Inc.

Still, she said, "Had Ms. Vinson refused to do what she was asked, it's possible this conspiracy might have been nipped in the bud."

Vinson, the company's former director of corporate reporting, testified at Ebbers' trial that in choosing which accounts to alter, "I just really pulled some out of the air. I used some spreadsheets."

Calmly standing before the judge on Friday, she said: "I never expected to be here, and I certainly won't do anything like this again."

Odd the way nothing more completely unbalances the Left than these corporate scandals, which occurred on their watch and have been prosecuted on President Bush's.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 6, 2005 12:00 AM