Fmr HealthSouth CEO Scrushy still maintains his innocence — Says ordeal was a ‘miscarriage of justice’

Throughout the 1990s and into the early part of the new millennia, former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy was one of the most well-known Alabamians, having hailed from Selma and made his company HealthSouth into one of the largest health care companies in the country.

However, Scrushy ran into headwinds beginning in the early 2000s as allegations of falsifying profits and other wrongdoings arose. Finally, after a long ordeal with the justice system that included two separate trials, Scrushy was convicted in federal court and eventually sentenced to six years and 10 months in federal prison. In 2012, he was released from federal custody.

During an appearance on Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” Scrushy, author of “It Should Not Happen in America: From Selma to Wall Street,” discussed his ordeals and his battles with the Department of Justice.

Scrushy still insists he was the victim of a “miscarriage of justice.”

“[A]lso the difficulty — when I was charged with things and had to go through court,” he explained. “And yet, at the end of the day, I was able to defeat that situation, and I was found ‘not guilty’ on all counts, and what the impact was on my family and my life. And then to be attacked for a political bribe, which I never gave Governor [Don] Siegelman a dollar, a dime in my life — and that was fraud. That never happened. And you have a judge that was thrown off the court — you had your derelict judicial misconduct. I had prosecutorial misconduct. We had the jury misconduct. We had all of this. We went to Washington, D.C., went before Congress. The committee chairman said it needs to be thrown out. Spoke to the U.S. Attorney, ended up in the Supreme Court. Most all of the charges were thrown out. Then they had to release me from prison after they put me in there illegally, wrongfully. My family went through torture. I went through a lot of fire, a lot of valley there — very difficult.”

“We’re just trying to put our lives back together after the attacks and the difficulties,” he said. “The book talks about that. It talks about some of the corruption, and it talks about what I went through. But at the end of the day, I wanted to also put some other stories in there, Jeff. I took other people that went through very difficult times in this country, where there was miscarriage of justice. I told some of those stories. You can see, I’m not whining that I went through. There are other people that went through difficult times. You know, we’re all imperfect. Judges are imperfect. Prosecutors are imperfect. Plaintiff attorneys are imperfect. We all are. I am. So the bottom line is I know all people make mistakes. And I know the best thing for us to do is try to move on when we go through difficult times. There have been a lot of mistakes made. I made them. Others made them, and the way I was treated and the things I had went through. I try to tell that story. We had 113 state attorneys general, both Democrat, and Republicans that they claimed what Siegelman and I did was not a crime. And here, both of us end up in prison, going through all of the difficult times. Our families are going through really a horrible situation. And it should have never happened in America, and that’s what the book is about. So, I tell the story about that, and I think the book is inspirational, as well as informative.”

The former HealthSouth CEO explained how it was difficult to take on the Department of Justice, especially as he indicated the rules were on its side.

“[Y]ou know the old saying, ‘You can indict a ham sandwich,’ is really true,” Scrushy explained. “You know, they go into a grand jury. You’re not there. Your lawyers are not there. Anybody who would know the truth and be on your side is not there. You can’t put any witnesses on. They go, and they put on whoever they want. They say whatever they want. They convince a grand jury that you’re guilty. They indict you. Once they indict you, you know, you’re broke because it’s going to take everything you’ve got, all of your money and all of your savings, to fight it legally. And that’s where they kill you. And then, if they put a snitch on the stand, who they’re threatening to put away for 20-30 years and they get him or her to say anything they want, and all that is acceptable. And then you’ve got your prosecutors. All they’re interested in is getting you locked up because that’s how they get promoted. Their bonuses, their promotions are all based on putting people in jail and how many years can they get them. Then you’ve got judges in many cases that are, in fact, somewhat influenced politically. So, you know, they may have a bone to pick.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.