Two former WorldCom execs pleads guilty

Two more WorldCom executives have pleaded guilty to charges arising from the company's accounting scandal.

It brings to four the number of WorldCom officials who have admitted to wrongdoing.

Betty Vinson, the former director of management reporting, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud.

Troy Normand, the director of legal entity accounting, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud in US District Court in Manhattan.

Normand and Vinson were top executives in the company's general accounting department, overseeing financial record-keeping.

Prosecutors filed court papers in August indicating the pair would plead guilty as part of cooperation agreements.

During her plea, Vinson told the judge she was ordered by her bosses in October 2000 to wrongly record $800m (€800m) on WorldCom's ledgers.

"I was very concerned about the order to make the adjustment," Vinson told the judge.

Over the next 18 months, she carried out similar orders to transfer huge sums in expenses in a scheme to hide WorldCom's financial woes from the investing public, she said.

Outside court, her lawyer Joseph Hollomon said Vinson had protested those changes but was overruled.