Seeing Bernie Ebbers' picture with a gloomy face after the guilty verdict was announced evoked some feelings of sympathy in me. Perhaps I am too sentimental seeing people in distress. I truly felt bad for him. He just doesn't look like a criminal. But the facts spoke for themselves.
Ebbers' star rose at a dizzying speed during the heyday of the telecom era. From a small-time phone company operator, he became the mighty chief of MCI WorldCom and would have nabbed the number one spot had his merger initiatives with Sprint had come to fruition.
We have been a long-time MCI customer and I suppose we should have foreseen such a bleak day for its chief. From our vantage point their accounting department was nothing short of a complete disarray. I can't tell you how many uncounted times we contacted their accounting people to fix a billing problem, only to call again and again after receiving subsequent erroneous invoices. And the bills themselves were impossible to decipher. It's almost as if they were deliberately designed that way to confuse and thus fleece the customers.
Ebbers' anguished face might engender feelings of pity for many, but in the final analysis, the man was in charge of the company and deeply involved in its operation. He could not shirk responsibility of the massive fraud that had overtaken the company, and the jury was observant enough to conclude his guilt.
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It is my sincere hope that a jail sentance will make other CEOs think twice before committing such acts. The fraud at Worldcom damaged Worldcom customers, their employees, shareholders, family of shareholders and as a byproduct the value of many telecom companies. This man may have been solely responsible for hundreds of billions in market capitalization fading away. It is tough to feel pity if you were one of the many people affected by this tragic financial manipulation.