Mark Abide, testifying for the prosecution at the fraud trial of former CEO Bernard Ebbers, appeared close to tears as he recounted being instructed to chalk up billions of dollars in assets he had never heard of.

Abide never implicated Ebbers in his testimony, and said under cross-examination that he believed the strange entries were being ordered by Scott Sullivan, who was chief financial officer at WorldCom.

Abide said he was asked repeatedly in 2001 to update WorldCom asset sheets to include unsubstantiated entries - sometimes more than $700 million per quarter.

"I was shocked," Abide testified. He added later: "It wasn't a tangible piece of equipment." He said he confronted an accountant who was ordering the entries, but that accountant said he did not know either.

As it turned out, the entries were part of a scheme to move WorldCom's soaring expenses for so-called line cost fees off the income statement and list them as assets on the balance sheet.

Prosecutors say that improper procedure made up a huge chunk of what was later determined to be an $11 billion accounting fraud at WorldCom, which collapsed in bankruptcy in 2002 and has since re-emerged as MCI Inc.

By early 2002, Abide said, he had made up his mind not to take part anymore in the questionable entries. He said he conveyed his decision to three accounting officials who called him to ask him to book more "prepaid capacity."

"I kind of went off on them and told them no way," Abide said. His voice broke as he continued: "I told them I wasn't going to be part of that entry. I had made up my mind to quit the company."

Not long after that, Abide testified, he aired his concerns to Cynthia Cooper, the internal auditor credited with blowing the whistle on the fraud at WorldCom.

Ebbers is accused of orchestrating the scheme, and faces charges of fraud, conspiracy and false regulatory filings that carry up to 85 years in prison.

But Abide did not testify that he believed Ebbers had ordered anything, and under cross-examination from a lawyer for Ebbers he said he never took his complaints to the CEO.

"Isn't it true that you never discussed these entries with Mr. Ebbers?" asked lawyer Brian Heberlig. "That's right," answered the witness.

Also Thursday, an internal WorldCom analyst testified about the company's declining revenue throughout 2001. Prosecutors showed jurors a fax in which Ebbers asked whether early 2001 revenue growth would be on target.

The analyst, Brady Connor, quickly drew up a presentation to show Ebbers that revenue growth, at least for the early part of the year, was in good shape.

Connor's boss later wrote to the CEO to say that perhaps Ebbers had been concerned because Ebbers was making unusual comparisons - comparing one month to another instead of the customary quarter-to-quarter.

Earlier Thursday, former WorldCom accountant Troy Normand said Sullivan told him in an October 2000 meeting that Ebbers understood accountants were unhappy with what they had been forced to do.

Normand had omitted the mention of Ebbers in recounting the meeting on the witness stand Wednesday.

-- Erin McClam