On Wednesday, Bernie Ebbers, former CEO of MCI Worldcom, was found guilty “on eight counts of conspiracy and false reporting.” In layman’s terms, Ebbers was found guilty by a jury of his peers for stealing and cooking his company’s financial books. “Just move a couple of decimal places.” Sounds innocuous, except when you consider the ramifications of cheating while running a multi-billion-dollar company. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation,

Shareholders lost about US$180 billion in Worldcom's collapse, the largest bankruptcy in US history. 20,000 workers lost their jobs. Mr Ebbers could face up to 85 years in prison when he's sentenced in June.

I overheard someone say today, “Isn’t 85 years a bit extreme?” Not at all. The American financial system is based on “transparency” – the idea that potential individual investors or professional money managers should be able to look at a company’s financial statements and make sound decisions on whether to put money into that company’s stock. It works pretty well, most of the time. You may ask, “Why did it take so long to catch Ebbers?”

One of the reasons it has taken awhile for justice to catch up with these crooks is the slick and complicated nature of the financial manipulations they used. Ebbers didn't intend to get caught. He and the other crooks of the 1999 economic bubble used nuances in financial laws to try to hide what they were doing. Because of the complexity of accounting standards and laws (sometimes politically motivated), its not always easy to prove wrongdoing.

But the jury in Ebbers’ trial were not amused or befuddled with his white collar thievery:

As the jury forewoman read the verdict -- guilty on all nine counts, including fraud and conspiracy -- Ebbers' face reddened noticeably. His wife, seated in the front row of the Manhattan courtroom, broke into tears.

Oh, poor baby. Let us hope he is sentenced to the entire 85 years. Justice needs to send a clear message to Wall Street: cheat and you will be dealt with harshly. If we don’t send that message, then we might as well replace the word “transparency” with “opacity” – and we can all keep our money stashed in our mattresses.