Bernard Ebbers was known as a Canadian businessman and the co-founder of WorldCom. He is most famous for playing a role in one of the largest accounting scandals in American history.
Bernard John Ebbers was born on August 27, 1941 in Edmonton, Canada. He was born to John T. and Kathleen Mary Ebbers. His father was a sales rep and a repairman. His mom was a homemaker. His family moved to California during the 1940s. Afterward, Bernie attended a boarding school on a Navajo reservation. He wound up accepting a basketball scholarship to Mississippi College, a private Baptist college in Clinton, Miss. He graduated in 1967 with a degree in physical education. After college, he worked as a high school basketball coach and managed inns.
Bernard Ebbers developed an unknown Mississippi telephone organization into a media communications mammoth, WorldCom. Mr. Ebbers turned his little organization, Long Distance Discount Service into a juggernaut and shocked the industry. He couldn’t stay on top as he went to prison after its breakdown in one of the country's biggest corporate embarrassments and scandals.
WorldCom was bolstered through a shocking string of over 40 mergers and acquisitions, including the $37 billion takeover in 1998 of MCI Communications, which was double the size of WorldCom. At its top in 1999, WorldCom employed over 80,000 individuals and had a market capitalization of about $180 billion.
Ebbers’ career came crashing down when it was revealed that his success was due to bookkeeping fraud. At his 2005 preliminary trial, former workers testified that Mr. Ebbers had encouraged them to swell WorldCom's monetary results to cause the organization to appear more profitable than it actually was.
In 2005, Ebbers was condemned to 25 years in jail. He didn’t serve his full sentence because, in December 2019, he was set free from a jail in Texas, having been conceded sympathetic medical discharge by a judge to spend his last years at home.
Ebbers married a woman named Linda Pigott in 1968. After decades of marriage, they separated in 1997. He and his next spouse, Kristie Ebbers got married in 1999. They separated almost a decade later in 2008.
He had a total of four daughters named Ave Easley, Treasure Ebbers Beeson, Joy Ebbers Bourne, and Faith Ebbers Gates. He also had12 grandchildren and one great-grandson.
On February 2, 2020, Ebbers passed away at his home in Brookhaven, Mississippi. During his last years, his health had disintegrated. His family made an announcement about his passing provided by his legal advisor, Graham P. Carner. One of his little girls, Joy Ebbers Bourne said that her father was showing strong signs of dementia in October of the previous year.
The family was aware that huge numbers of people who suffered from her father's scandal had objected to his early discharge from jail. The family stated they would national movements of families are requesting early prison release for prisoners with declining health.
| Birth Date: | 27 Aug, 1941 |
| Age: | 78 yrs |
| Occupations: | Businessperson Entrepreneur |
| Citizenship: | Canada United States of America |
| Birth Place: | Edmonton |
| Education: | Calvin University Mississippi College |
| Gender: | Male |
| Description: | Canadian businessman and fraudster (1941-2020) |
| Net Worth 2020: | 1.4 billion |
