Ex-WorldCom Controller Sentenced to 1 Year, 1 Day

Former WorldCom Inc. controller David Myers, the third-ranking company executive charged in an $11-billion accounting fraud, was sentenced Wednesday to one year and one day in prison.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones said she was sparing Myers, 47, a longer prison term because of his extraordinary cooperation with the government and his early admission of responsibility and remorse.

As controller, Myers admitted, he instructed WorldCom’s accounting department to make billions of dollars in adjustments to financial statements so the company could meet Wall Street expectations.

He said he did so on orders from Scott D. Sullivan, the chief financial officer, who today will become the sixth former WorldCom executive to be sentenced.

Myers, a father of three, told the judge he would regret his conduct for the rest of his life. “At the time I consider to be the single most critical character-defining moment of my life, I failed,” he said.

He went on: “As I teach my children what is right and what is wrong, I’ve got to acknowledge that I did something that was not just wrong, but horribly wrong,” he said.

The extra day tacked on to the year’s prison term makes Myers eligible to have his time reduced for good behavior. He would still be required to serve more than 10 months.

Jones said she would recommend Myers be assigned to the federal prison in Yazoo City, Miss., near his home. He was ordered to report Oct. 10.

The judge and the lead federal prosecutor on the case both gave Myers credit for coming clean to internal WorldCom auditors, even before he met with law enforcement officials investigating the fraud in 2002.

Later that year, Myers pleaded guilty to conspiracy, securities fraud and false regulatory filings. He worked with the government extensively as it built a case against former Chief Executive Bernard J. Ebbers, who was convicted in the fraud this year and sentenced to 25 years in prison.