A federal jury Monday completed its second day of deliberations in the fraud trial of former WorldCom Inc. Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers without reaching a verdict.
The jury briefly returned to the courtroom twice to watch tapes of television interviews conducted with Ebbers, which were previously played during the six-week trial.
“We have been a sound financial company,” Ebbers says in one interview, given to CNBC in February 2002. “We have been very conservative in our accounting.”
Jurors also asked for transcripts of some of the trial’s testimony to be sent to the jury room.
In addition to fraud, Ebbers, 63, is charged with conspiracy and filing false documents with regulators -- all counts relating to the multibillion accounting scandal at WorldCom. He faces up to 85 years in prison if convicted of all the charges.
Shortly after investigators uncovered the $11 billion fraud at WorldCom in 2002, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It emerged last year using the name MCI.
Jury deliberations will resume on Tuesday.
