Bernie Ebbers gets 25 years

Further proof that bloggers are not great prognosticators comes from this news that former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers today received a sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment for his fraud offenses.  In this post, I had predicted 12 years and Peter Henning at the White Collar Crime Prof Blog had predicted the sentence “will be in the 8-10 year range.” 

Over at the White Collar Crime Prof Blog, Ellen Podgor already has a terrific set of reactions to the Ebbers outcome in this post, which concludes: “this sentence represents a new trend in this country — a trend that fails to follow long studied sentencing theory of deterrence and rehabilitation.  It is good to see a crackdown on white collar crime, but folks lets be rational in how it is done.” 

UPDATE: At TalkLeft, this post about the Ebbers’ outcome is generating interesting comments.  Also, at the White Collar Crime Prof Blog, Ellen Podgor has added some comments to this post about the sentencing significance of charitable work (an issue nicely covered in this USA Today article).