Bernie Ebbers Trial

Bernie Ebbers knows nothing?

So it looks like ex-WorldCom chief Bernie Ebbers adopted the Sgt. Schultz Defense

in his testimony before a federal court last week:

"I know nozzing!"

Ebbers???charged with helping to perpetrate the largest fraud in corporate history???claims he was unaware of any of the bogus accounting entries that inflated WorldCom's financials by more than $11 billion and eventually led to its filing for bankruptcy.

So this sexagenarian good ol' boy barely knows a bit stream from a fishing stream and a debit from a credit, yet he managed to mastermind dozens of acquisitions in building a small long-distance company into a telecom giant worth $180 billion at its peak?

Meantime, former WorldCom financial chief Scott Sullivan, who has pleaded guilty to fraud-related charges and agreed to cooperate with the government, testified for the prosecution this week that Ebbers was a hands-on manager with a command of accounting and financial details. Sullivan testified that Ebbers was fully aware of WorldCom's cooked books.

The prosecution made its closing arguments yesterday; the defense is due to close today. If convicted, Ebbers could spend the rest of his life in prison. WorldCom, now out of bankruptcy under the MCI name, has a deal to be acquired by Verizon but is still being pursued by Qwest.