Ebbers Jurors Ask Judge to Clarify Issue

The jury weighing federal fraud charges against former WorldCom Inc. Chief Executive Bernard J. Ebbers asked the judge to clarify what they needed to decide to convict him on seven of nine charges.

Ebbers is accused of conspiracy, securities fraud and seven counts of making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Jurors in the New York trial asked District Judge Barbara Jones whether they needed to determine how much investors lost and to make other similar findings to convict Ebbers of the false-filing counts. Jones said they didn’t.

“I think it’s probably a bad sign if you’re Bernie Ebbers,” said Bradford Lewis, a former federal prosecutor in California who is a defense lawyer at Fenwick & West. “The implication is they’re leaning one sort of way.”