Qwest Ex-CFO Escapes Jail Time in Stock Case

Robin Szeliga, a former finance chief at Qwest Communications International Inc., was sentenced to two years’ probation, including six months’ home detention, and fined $250,000 for insider trading linked to an accounting scandal.

Szeliga, 45, pleaded guilty a year earlier and agreed to cooperate in an investigation of the No. 4 U.S. local phone company. Szeliga, chief financial officer in 2001 and 2002, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Walker Miller in Denver, where Qwest is based.

Szeliga, who could have received as much as 10 years in prison, is the highest-ranking former Qwest executive to plead guilty or be convicted in a four-year investigation that has included the insider trading indictment of former Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio, 57. Her cooperation could help prosecutors convict Nacchio when he is tried.