John Sidgmore, 52; Helped Reveal WorldCom Scandal

John Sidgmore, 52, the WorldCom executive who helped reveal the accounting troubles that led to the biggest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, died Thursday of complications associated with acute pancreatitis, a family spokesman announced.

A resident of Potomac, Md., Sidgmore was named president of WorldCom in April 2002, when the firm’s founder, Bernard Ebbers, was forced to resign. Sidgmore quickly disclosed the company’s accounting problems. He resigned last December but continued to work with WorldCom as a consultant.

Sidgmore had been vice chairman of the board when the company was involved in an accounting shell game to make it appear more profitable, but he said in July 2002, soon after the bankruptcy declaration, “I haven’t been involved in the direct operations of the company in several years.”

Earlier that month, he had expressed optimism about the firm, yet also apologized for its “past transgressions” and vowed to cooperate as the government investigated.

“We want the bad guys exposed,” Sidgmore said at a news conference. “We want the bad guys punished.” The Securities and Exchange Commission had filed civil fraud charges a week earlier against WorldCom after the company disclosed that it had improperly accounted for nearly $4 billion in expenses, thus inflating its earnings. The news sent the company’s stock plummeting below a dime.

Sidgmore was born in Suffern, N.Y. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the State University of New York in 1973 and spent most of his early business career with General Electric Information Systems.

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Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani, a veteran Islamic cleric and leader of Pakistan’s opposition religious alliance, died Thursday in an Islamabad hospital after a heart attack, Associated Press reported. He was 77.