So Nortel paid its senior executives cash bonuses in January even though its books were being examined by its indepedent audit committee. You have to wonder if the company's senior management had any clear about how far they had wondered off the track. This was a company just starting to get back on its feet in a market that, at best, will show single-digit growth this year, and Nortel feels cocky enough to reward its senior managers with cash. Why not keep the restricted stocks units pure equity vehicles? The more this story unfolds, the more difficult it is not to be convinced there was a giant Ponzi scheme going on. Perhaps the people at the core of it never thought they would be caught. For Nortel, the worse it probably yet to come as criminal charges are laid and the class-action lawsuits pile up. William Owens may live to regret the day he agreed to replace Frank Dunn as CEO.