Former WorldCom Execs Refuse To Testify

On ABC's Good Morning America show on Monday, committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) said that attorneys for former CEO Bernard Ebbers and former CFO Scott Sullivan informed the committee that they would not be testifying.

The committee sent subpoenas to Ebbers and Sullivan, as well as current WorldCom CEO John Sidgmore and Salomon Smith Barney analyst Jack Grubman, on June 27, following the discovery that the carrier hid $3.8 billion in expenses over the past 15 months.

At a press conference last week, Sidgmore placed the blame for the accounting errors at the feet of Sullivan and former Senior Vice President and Controller Dave Myers, who resigned when Sullivan was terminated on June 24.

"We know that Scott Sullivan and Dave Myers were involved in [the accounting errors, and I believe they may have ordered a clerk to make these entries," Sidgmore said.

Sidgmore said he and other executives at WorldCom had no idea whether Ebbers was aware of the hidden costs. He expressed alarm that WorldCom's auditor, Arthur Andersen, didn't discover the errors.

"Arthur Andersen swears up and down that they didn't know anything about this," he said. "We, internally, are a little bit concerned that they didn't know anything about it, because if it were going to be obvious to anyone, it would have been obvious to them."