Not a happy weekend for Bernie Ebbers

A long drive to give a lecture today has me very ready for the weekend.  But Bernie Ebbers, the former CEO of WorldCom, will not be enjoying the weekend as much as I hope to: the Second Circuit has affirmed his conviction and 25-year prison sentence. The opinion in US v. Ebbers, No. 05-4059 (2d Cir. July 28, 2006) (available here), is authored by Judge Ralph Winter. 

I will update this post when I get a chance to read the full opinion.  But I can whet everyone’s appetite by relaying that, according to an FOB, the opinion includes “some interesting discussion of loss causation and reasonableness in white collar cases.”

UPDATE:  All the sentencing issues, and especially post-Booker reasonableness concepts based in the provisions of 3353(a), get short shrift in the Ebbers opinion.  Conviction issues are covered for 35+ pages, sentencing issues occupy less than 10.  And most of the sentencing pages discuss loss calculations, with co-defendant disparity and reasonableness review getting just a few paragraphs.  But this allocation of energies apparently reflects choices made by the defense team: the Ebbers opinions suggests that the defense did not argue that the 25-year sentence was unreasonable, even though one might readily imagine an elaborate argument that such a lengthy term of imprisonment is “greater than necessary” under 3553(a).

MORE: Further analysis and comments on the Ebbers decision can be found at TalkLeft and at the Second Circuit Sentencing Blog.