An accountant who made some of the 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.
Later in the day, a second former accounting official who testified against Ebbers, Troy Normand, was sentenced to three years of probation.
Prosecutor David Anders told the judge that Vinson, above left, put "her own independent thought" into how to fudge the numbers.
The role of Normand, above right, simply was to see that the books and records of the company had been changed, Anders said.
The $11 billion fraud plunged WorldCom into bankruptcy in 2002, and the company has since emerged under the name MCI Inc.
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