Kudos to Shawn Young of the WSJ for finding this original angle to report on in the WorldCom case--the professional actors hired by plaintiffs' counsel to "perform"  lines of prior testimony from witnesses who took the Fifth and refused to testify at the civil trial. 

The job of reading prior testimony into the record from unavailable witnesses is routinely handled by the lawyers in the case.  However, because such testimony (and the lawyers who read it) can be quite dry, the article notes that some lawyers are now turning this task over to professional actors in order to "breathe life" into the testimony.

Enter actors like Neil Intraub, who has been acting for 25 years and

can currently be seen playing the father of a tech-savvy 16-year-old in a TV spot for Comcast Corp. He does voice-overs for commercials and readings at Manhattan's Cornelia Street Cafe, a short distance from his apartment in the East Village. With a partner, he performs Laurel and Hardy-inspired comedies at colleges and theaters.

Intraub reportedly jumped at the chance to play his first villain--Scott Sullivan--and rehearsed twice with plaintiffs' counsel for this "off-Broadway drama with a captive audience -- the jury at a civil trial in Manhattan federal court."  He was paid $1,000.

The article notes that Intraub didn't let his lack of financial knowledge get in the way of a good performance:

"WorldCom Group Ebitda was $2 billion, vs. $2.3 billion in the year-ago period," he said smoothly during his performance.

"What is Ebitda?" he asked afterward, wondering whether he had pronounced correctly the Wall Street shorthand for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.