"Virtually every allegation of wrongdoing at my client, Mr. Ebbers, came directly from a highly impeachable source, Scott Sullivan," lawyer Reid Weingarten said in his closing argument at Ebbers' fraud trial.

Weingarten said while he listened to the government's closing argument on Wednesday, accusing Ebbers of ordering the fraud, "I thought I was in the wrong courtroom."

While he conceded Ebbers was CEO while the $11 billion fraud took place, he said Ebbers simply trusted Sullivan, giving Sullivan the chance to mastermind a fraud Ebbers did not know about.

"He should not be convicted if he, like so many others at WorldCom and around WorldCom, didn't know about the line cost adjustments," Weingarten said, referring to the expenses WorldCom accountants covered up, sometimes by nearly $1 billion per quarter.

Weingarten said Sullivan was "more rehearsed in his direct testimony than the actor who plays Hamlet on Broadway."

He said Sullivan, after his initial arrest in 2002, took 18 months to "cook up these conversations with Bernie Ebbers" in which he claims Ebbers ordered the trial.

Referring to Sullivan, Weingarten said, "All his boys are about to nail him, and he's facing life (in prison) and now he's got to come up with something."

On Wednesday, prosecutor William Johnson, giving his closing argument, took aim at Ebbers' claim that he was merely a former basketball coach who knew little about accounting and finance.

"He lied right to your face," Johnson told jurors. "The aw-shucks defense insults your intelligence. You know better."

Judge Barbara Jones said has said jurors could get the case as early as Thursday afternoon.

Ebbers testified that he knew nothing of the accounting fraud until it became public in the summer of 2002, after he had resigned.

Johnson portrayed Ebbers, 63, as a hard-nosed, temperamental manager who became the commanding general of an "army of fraud" at WorldCom, which is now known as MCI Inc.

Five other executives pleaded guilty in the $11 billion accounting scandal. But only Ebbers had the greatest motive to fool shareholders, and the most to lose - including $400 million in personal loans backed by WorldCom stock - if the company's true, sagging finances became public, Johnson said.

Ebbers is charged with fraud, conspiracy and false regulatory filings.

On the stand, he refuted testimony by Sullivan, who said Ebbers pressured him into committing fraud by insisting the company had to "hit our numbers," or please Wall Street.

"He's never told me he made an entry that wasn't right," Ebbers told jurors. "If he had, we wouldn't be here today."

-- Erin McClam