Disgraced former WorldCom executive Scott Sullivan has enough cash to defend himself on fraud charges in New York, prosecutors argued yesterday.
Sullivan had asked that the trial be moved from New York to Washington, D.C., saying a New York trial would inflict a financial hardship on him and his family.
His lawyer has also argued the trial should be moved because Sullivan’s wife suffers from diabetes, and the family has relatives in Washington who could care for her while he is on trial.
But in court papers, David Anders, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case, noted the $19 million in salary and bonuses Sullivan raked in during 1997, as well as the $45.3 million he reaped from selling WorldCom stock over the last six years, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.
While crying poverty to a judge in New York, Sullivan is in the process of building a $15 million mansion in Boca Raton, Fla., complete with an 18-seat movie theater, art gallery, swimming pool and lagoon.
“Sullivan is able, if he chooses, to bear the expense of relocating his wife, child and defense team to New York for the duration of the trial,” Anders wrote in the court filing.
WorldCom went bankrupt last summer after admitting it fudged its books by misstating more than $9 billion in expenses.
Bernie Ebbers, the former CEO who left in April, walked away from the beleaguered company with close to $500 million.
Sullivan, who was chief financial officer at Clinton, Miss.-based WorldCom, is accused of masterminding the gigantic fraud. In August he was arrested and paraded in front of the media in handcuffs.
Prosecutors also named some of the witnesses – all of whom are cooperating with prosecutors – they plan to call at the trial. These include Buford Yates, the former head of accounting; David Myers, former controller; and accounting execs Troy Normand and Betty Vinson.
Myers, accused of conspiring with Sullivan, admitted in September that he followed orders from “senior management” to falsify WorldCom’s books. Yates said on Oct. 7 that Sullivan told him to falsify records.