NEW YORK - The former director of general accounting at WorldCom was sentenced Tuesday to one year and one day in prison for his role in the company's record $11 billion fraud. The sentence for Buford "Buddy" Yates, 49, came nearly three years after he pleaded guilty to helping WorldCom overstate its earnings from 2000 to 2002 in a scandal that bankrupted the telecom company.

Yates pleaded guilty to fraud in October 2002, telling a judge he was instructed by superiors to make adjustments to company books that had "no justification" and were designed to meet Wall Street expectations.

"There is not a day that goes by that I don't think back to my actions and regret my decisions," Yates told U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones. "I chose the easy way out."

The judge said Yates had been "perhaps the least useful" of all the cooperators with the government's case. She said Yates appeared to have been motivated by "a reluctance to upset the apple cart" at the company.

The judge also imposed a $5,000 fine and ordered Yates to report to federal prison Oct. 10.