A federal judge sentenced a former Qwest Communications executive to probation and a $5,000 fine Tuesday and said no one charged in the government’s highly touted investigation of fraud at the telecommunications giant will go to prison.
Thomas Hall, who pleaded guilty last year to a single misdemeanor count of falsifying documents, was the first person sentenced in a case then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced as an example of the government’s intolerance of white-collar crime. Two years ago, a grand jury indicted four executives on 12 felony counts each.
