NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Ex-WorldCom chief executive Bernard Ebbers was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison for his role in orchestrating the biggest corporate fraud in the nation's history.
Legal experts said the sentence is the largest ever against a top executive convicted of committing corporate crimes.
Ebbers was convicted in March for his part in the $11 billion accounting fraud at WorldCom that was the biggest in a wave of corporate scandals at Enron, Adelphia and other companies.
WorldCom, now known as MCI, filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2002. The company's collapse cost shareholders and employees billions of dollars in losses.
Ebbers, 63, was convicted in March of nine felonies that carried a maximum prison term of 85 years.
U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Jones ordered Ebbers to begin serving his sentence in October.
It's not yet known where he will be incarcerated, but the Bureau of Prisons has a policy of placing inmates within 500 miles of their homes, if possible.
In issuing the sentence, Judge Jones recommended a prison in Yazoo City, Miss.
Ebbers had asked for leniency, arguing that his heart problems, history of community service and personal financial losses from WorldCom's collapse warranted a lighter sentence.
Legal experts said they were not surprised by the stiff sentence. They pointed to a series of harsh punishments that have come down in recent years, including the sentences that came down last month for two former Adelphia Communications executives.
John Rigas, Adelphia's founder, and his son Timothy, the cable company's former chief financial officer, got 15 years and 20 years, respectively.
"When it comes to issues of fraud committed by chief executive officers, judges are very emphatic in trying to set a harsh tone," said Barry Felder, a partner in the law firm Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner.
-Arlos
