Federal Jury Convicts Nat'l Century Exec

The jury took one day to deliver its decision against Lance Poulsen, former chief executive officer of National Century Financial Enterprises, described as the nation's largest health care financing firm before its 2002 bankruptcy.

Poulsen was accused of offering a former company executive $500,000 to give misleading testimony during Poulsen's fraud trial scheduled for August.

The executive, Sherry Gibson, told jurors that Karl Demmler, a long time friend to her and Poulsen, told her that Poulsen "wanted to make me whole."

The jury also convicted Demmler, whom prosecutors had accused of acting as an intermediary for Poulsen to contact Gibson.

Poulsen said Gibson misunderstood his attempts to help her. He said he was only trying to provide her with a new attorney because he believed she'd been wrongly convicted based on bad legal advice.

Gibson pleaded guilty in 2003 for her role in the National Century fraud case in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors.

Poulsen and Demmler face up to 35 years in prison for their convictions on all counts of an indictment alleging conspiracy, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.