Betty Vinson, a former midlevel manager at WorldCom Inc, was sentenced on Friday to five months in prison for participating in the $11 billion fraud at the telecommunications company that triggered its bankruptcy. Vinson also was ordered to serve five months in home detention. A former WorldCom director of management who helped prepare financial documents, Vinson testified for the government in the trial of former Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers.
She was the first of five former WorldCom officials - who all co-operated with prosecutors probing financial wrongdoing at the company - who face sentencing over the next week.
Troy Normand, WorldCom's ex-director of legal entity accounting, was set to be sentenced later on Friday.
Ex-WorldCom Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan, considered the star witness at Ebbers' trial, will be sentenced next Thursday.
Vinson, 49, pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy.
At Ebbers' trial, she described bogus accounting designed to help the company meet its profit expectations. She said she was pressured by her superiors to manipulate the company's books.
Ebbers was found guilty in March and sentenced last month to 25 years in prison.
Vinson's attorney asked Manhattan federal judge Barbara Jones for probation rather than jail time.
But the judge said it was necessary to impose some prison time, although Jones cut the sentence because Vinson's co-operation with prosecutors "played a very significant role in the unravelling of the fraud."
Vinson "was among the least culpable members of the conspiracy at WorldCom," and likely participated in the fraud because she was afraid of losing her job, Jones said.
That did not excuse Vinson's behaviour, however, the judge said.
"It's possible this conspiracy might have been nipped in the bud" if Vinson refused to carry out her superiors' orders, Jones said.
Vinson faced a possible maximum prison term of 14 years, but had been widely expected to receive a lighter sentence because she co-operated with prosecutors.
In brief, barely audible remarks to the judge, Vinson said she "never expected to be here" and "certainly will never do anything like this again."
The judge ordered Vinson to begin serving her sentence on November 7. Her lawyer requested that she be housed in a prison near friends and family in Jackson, Mississippi, but federal probation officials will make a final determination.