Scrushy on trial: He's sure he'll win

HealthSouth's charismatic founder is approaching his upcoming court date on fraud charges in his customary manner -- with great self-assurance.

By Katherine Vogt, AMNews staff. Dec. 27, 2004.

Richard M. Scrushy's career is defined by boldness and extreme confidence. After all, the former respiratory therapist started HealthSouth in 1984 -- mostly with his money -- to revolutionize physical therapy by taking it out of hospital basements and small facilities.

Scrushy was successful in a short time -- he took HealthSouth public in 1986, and a few years later, thanks to aggressive acquisition and marketing strategies, the company was the nation's largest outpatient services company.

But now Scrushy is awaiting federal trial on charges related to a massive accounting scandal at HealthSouth, which fired him as CEO once the scandal came to light. And true to his style, he's facing it with boldness and confidence -- he's sure he'll be found innocent, and that he might even be able to work for HealthSouth again.

"Absolutely we believe that we will be fully acquitted. We're innocent of these charges," Scrushy said in an interview in early December. "We're looking forward to our day in court to put this behind us and let us go back to having a normal life. My family has been wrongly burdened with this. It's been a lot of pain and anguish."

Jury selection in Scrushy's trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 5, 2005, in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala., HealthSouth's home base.

Prosecutors are expected to contend that Scrushy was the ringleader of the accounting scheme. They say he threatened and intimidated other HealthSouth executives to go along with the scheme while he personally reaped more than $278 million in "ill-gotten gains" to furnish a lavish lifestyle in which he bought expensive cars, jewelry, art, boats and even an airplane.