By Associated Press
Birmingham, AL – Richard Scrushy's federal criminal trial, which ended in his acquittal, was an entertaining, white-collar whodunit with everything from a courtroom prayer circle to a big cartoon rat.
Four years later, the civil trial of a shareholder lawsuit seeking $2.6 billion from the disgraced HealthSouth chief executive isn't making nearly the same splash. There is few fireworks and no crowd this time, despite the huge amount of money at stake in the trial that started last week.
Scrushy is two years into a nearly seven-year federal prison sentence for a federal bribery conviction. He says he did nothing wrong and will blame the fraud on the 15 former HealthSouth executives who pleaded guilty in the scandal.
Scrushy is scheduled to give his first public testimony about the fraud this week in Birmingham.