Post by Moses on Jun 29, 2005 6:21:23 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/business/29fassess.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
If ever a chief executive seemed destined for prison, it was Richard M. Scrushy.
Mr. Scrushy has always maintained his innocence. But at his trial, no one disputed that there was a staggering $2.7 billion accounting fraud at HealthSouth, the company he helped found in 1984. Federal prosecutors lined up many former executives, including five former chief financial officers, to testify that Mr. Scrushy orchestrated the wrongdoing. In court, they played a secret tape-recording that seemed to incriminate him.
Jurors, who heard from dozens of witnesses but never the man himself, agreed with Mr. Scrushy - to the surprise of many lawyers watching the case. "It's a stunner, given how strong the government's case seemed to be," said Gregory J. Wallance, a former prosecutor who is now a partner at Kaye Scholer in New York.
The outcome of the case makes clear the importance of having lawyers who can connect with jurors, both inside and outside the courtroom. And the decision to hold the trial in Mr. Scrushy's hometown, Birmingham, Ala., may have given his lawyers an advantage in presenting him as a local boy made good, then unfairly brought low by underlings eager to pass the blame.
....He was tried and acquitted in a city where his generosity was well known and his religious faith was on public display through his television broadcasts and his preaching at black churches.
If ever a chief executive seemed destined for prison, it was Richard M. Scrushy.
Mr. Scrushy has always maintained his innocence. But at his trial, no one disputed that there was a staggering $2.7 billion accounting fraud at HealthSouth, the company he helped found in 1984. Federal prosecutors lined up many former executives, including five former chief financial officers, to testify that Mr. Scrushy orchestrated the wrongdoing. In court, they played a secret tape-recording that seemed to incriminate him.
Jurors, who heard from dozens of witnesses but never the man himself, agreed with Mr. Scrushy - to the surprise of many lawyers watching the case. "It's a stunner, given how strong the government's case seemed to be," said Gregory J. Wallance, a former prosecutor who is now a partner at Kaye Scholer in New York.
The outcome of the case makes clear the importance of having lawyers who can connect with jurors, both inside and outside the courtroom. And the decision to hold the trial in Mr. Scrushy's hometown, Birmingham, Ala., may have given his lawyers an advantage in presenting him as a local boy made good, then unfairly brought low by underlings eager to pass the blame.
....He was tried and acquitted in a city where his generosity was well known and his religious faith was on public display through his television broadcasts and his preaching at black churches.
