Former WorldCom chief executive Bernard Ebbers on Tuesday began a 25-year term at a minimum-security prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, for his role in the US$11 billion fraud that led to the collapse of his telecom empire.
His sentence is one of the stiffest in recent memory in a white-collar crime case and reflects the effort to crack down on corporate misconduct in the wake of the scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other companies.
Meanwhile, former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, 44, began a six year sentence at a prison in Houston, Texas, for his role in a fraud scheme that forced the 2001 collapse of the energy trading company, the biggest bankruptcy in US history at the time.
His sentence was four years less than the maximum allowed because he struck a plea deal with prosecutors to help in their investigations.
Fastow choked back tears on Tuesday as he told a judge he despaired over the pain and suffering he had caused. He said he accepted his punishment "without bitterness."
"I cannot undo the harm I have caused," Fastow told the court, adding that he was ashamed of what he had done.
Corporate greed
Shareholders lost about US$180 billion in WorldCom's collapse, 20,000 workers lost their jobs and the company went bankrupt.
The fraud stretched from 2000 to 2002 as Ebbers, now 65, struggled to have the company's finances appear healthy during the dot-com meltdown.
Once listed by Forbes magazine as the world's 376th richest man with a fortune of US$1.4 billion, Ebbers resigned in April 2002 after admitting borrowing money from the firm to cover losses he incurred in buying its shares.
Worldcom emerged from bankruptcy last year, renamed MCI Inc, after striking a US$750 million settlement with federal regulators to repay investors.
At Enron, Fastow lined his own pockets while crafting arcane financial structures to hide billions of dollars in company losses, which, when revealed, resulted in Enron's collapse with US$40 billion in debt.
Fastow pleaded guilty after prosecutors pursued his wife for her role in hiding their ill-gotten gains. While she served a year in prison, Fastow spent more than 1,000 hours with prosecutors to untangle a web of schemes and false statements, prosecutor John Hueston told the court.
His testimony and evidence proved critical in proving the involvement and obtaining the convictions of Enron founder Kenneth Lay and chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.
Lay, died of a heart attack in July while awaiting sentencing. He was 64. He proclaimed his innocence to the end and his family is trying to have his conviction overturned.
Skilling, who is appealing his conviction, will be sentenced on October 23 and faces up to 185 years in jail.