Former CEO of Qwest Communications, Joseph Nacchio, was told to pay $52 million on Friday--the amount that the court suspects he made from his illegal stock sales--and sentenced him to six years in prison for insider trading. Nacchio was convicted earlier this year by a federal jury. He was CEO of Qwest from 1997 to 2002. During Nacchio's time as CEO, the company pension fund dropped from $5 billion in value to a slight deficit, Eldon Graham, a retired Qwest employee who is active in the Oregon and Washington Pension Equity Council, told InfoWorld. "I'm satisfied with the outcome of this case," Graham noted. This news follows other prominent executives which have been convicted, including Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling from Enron and WorldCom's former CEO Bernard Ebbers, who was found guilty in 2005 of accounting fraud.

For more on Nacchio's sentence:
- read the news in this Infoworld article