Ex-Exec: Scrushy Didn’t Go to Secret Meetings

HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy, on trial over an alleged $2.7-billion fraud, didn’t attend meetings discussing accounting manipulations at the company, former Assistant Controller Ken Livesay testified.

Livesay, who has pleaded guilty, detailed the roles of other HealthSouth employees in the fraud from 1996 to 1999 but said that Scrushy wasn’t present at any of the secret meetings and that he never sought out the chief executive to discuss the matter.

Livesay’s testimony in Birmingham, Ala., federal court bolsters defense arguments that Scrushy didn’t know about the fraud and relied on subordinates to provide financial figures.