EBBERS FACES SENTENCING

Former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday for orchestrating the $11 billion accounting scandal that became the biggest securities fraud in American history.

Having been found guilty in March on all counts of his federal criminal trial — conspiracy, fraud and seven counts of filing false statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission — the 64-year-old Ebbers faces up to 85 years in prison, though most legal experts expect the sentence to be between 10 and 15 years.

Almost all of Ebbers' cash and property will be confiscated as part of a settlement he reached in late June in the resolution of a class-action civil suit brought against him by former WorldCom investors. About $5 million in cash and the proceeds from soon-to-be liquidated assets worth an estimated $25 million to $40 million will be divided among MCI and former WorldCom investors. A $450,000 payment will be made to former WorldCom employees as part of a separate suit. Some cash will go to pay legal fees and to provide Ebbers' wife with what plaintiffs call “a modest living allowance.”

One former WorldCom employee told Telephony last week, “I, for one, will be happy once he's in the ‘big house.’ I was one of the ones who received a faxed layoff notice.”