Sweet Cold Justice

Maybe, just maybe, a judge in Birmingham was trying to make a point when he ordered Richard Scrushy to pay $2.876 Billion to the shareholders of HealthSouth Corp.

Scrushy was acquitted of criminal charges back in 2005, that alleged that he was the puppet-master of the accounting hocus-pocus going on at the company.

Scrushy appears to be taking similar steps to that of everybody's favorite acquitted killer O.J. Simpson.

Step 1 - Be acquitted of criminal charges

Step 2 - Be found liable in civil proceeding and be ordered to pay a metric asston of cash you don't have

Step 3 - Move to Florida because, somehow, if you're found liable and you live in FLA, you don't have to pay shit.

Step 4 - Hold up/kidnap some people who have your stuff because you need to sell it because you're still getting hounded by the people you owe a metric asston of cash to.

Step 5 - Be found guilty of holdup/kidnapping and be sentenced to the rest of your scofflaw days in jail

Scrushy's already serving seven years for an unrelated bribery case but we think the trail has been blazed for a more appropriate conclusion.

Scrushy Found Liable in HealthSouth Shareholder Suit [WSJ (subscription required)]

Judge orders Scrushy to pay $2.9B to shareholders [Miami Herald] Sphere: Related Content

HealthSouth Lawyers Want $20M For Going After E&Y

The New Mexico attorney general says that the attorneys that sued E&Y on behalf of HealthSouth Investors should receive $20 million on a proposed $109 million settlement.

The settlement was over E&Y's failure to detect the $2.7 billion fraud at HealthSouth that was pretty much all Richard Scrushy's fault.

According to the article the AG said that the fee was "reasonable" because of counsel's "superior skill and ability"

In a strange bit of irony, it's likely that because of E&Y's superior skill and ability, they must have concluded that the $2.7 billion discrepancy was reasonable.

HealthSouth Investors’ Lawyers Deserve $20 Million [Bloomberg] Sphere: Related Content

Contrary to Anyone's Knowledge, HealthSouth's Fraud is Still in the News

The Ghosts of Bush Administration Corporate fraud are still lingering. There is currently a civil case against Richard Scrushy, the former CEO of HealthSouth and some shocking news came out of a deposition of an executive that was/is helping (isn't clear from the article) turn the company around.

According to the AP, Scrushy, who beat criminal charges back in 2005 (only by virtue of a carefully negotiated deal with the Morning Star), left the company with "no internal controls".

SHEESH, I guess it makes you wonder how fraud was able to occur in the first place...

Scrushy Left HealthSouth in Disarray, Executive Says [AP via DealBook] Sphere: Related Content