William Johnson, assistant
US attorney, told jurors at the trial that they should disregard the “Aw shucks, I’m not sophisticated”
defence, and that Mr Ebbers was a hands-on chairman very focused on costs, citing
examples. During the trial, Charna Sherman, Partner at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, said that
“Mr Sullivan [WorldsCom’s former chief financial officer and main witness against Mr Ebbers]
was sufficiently persuasive to substantiate the natural presumption that nobody that high up
could miss such a massive fraud, so Mr Ebbers had to take the huge gamble of testifying