Thomas Hall, the first former Qwest executive sentenced for the Denver telecom company's accounting scandal, has died in Chicago.

The cause was a cancerous brain tumor, said his wife, Ann Hall. Mr. Hall passed away Monday - the first day of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio's trial. He was 55.

In February 2005, he was sentenced to one year of probation and given a $5,000 fine.

In handing down the punishment, U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn rejected prosecutors' contention that Mr. Hall had helped supervise and plan a scheme to inflate Qwest's revenue by $34 million in 2001.

Mr. Hall, a former senior vice president of sales, pleaded guilty in September 2004 to a single misdemeanor charge of falsifying a document.

But Blackburn concluded he was guilty of a single act that marked a "deviation from an otherwise law-abiding" and exemplary life. He added that Mr. Hall's actions involved no more than minimal planning - "almost a pinch-hitting role" - and that there was no motivation to profit personally.

In Mr. Hall's trial in April 2004, the jury deadlocked on all 11 charges against him. He had been one of four former Qwest executives charged with hatching a plan to inflate revenue in connection with an Internet equipment sale.

"Tom handled his illness with grace and dignity, just as he handled the unfair assault on his reputation and integrity during the four-year investigation by federal prosecutors," his wife wrote in an e-mailed statement. "Even though he eventually only received a misdemeanor, Tom was never able to accept the injustice of his prosecution."

Mr. Hall "lost practically everything" because of the case, according to attorney Jeffrey Springer, including a million-dollar home in Colorado.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Hall is survived by a daughter and three sisters.

fillionr@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2467