A HealthSouth Founder Testifies in Fraud Trial
A key witness against Richard Scrushy testified that the fired HealthSouth Corp. chief executive never told him to break the law at the start of a huge fraud, and that FBI agents pressed him for figures about the scam after he went to investigators.
But Aaron Beam, a founder and the first chief financial officer of the rehabilitation giant, mostly stuck by his claim that Scrushy was the catalyst of the more than $2.6-billion scheme.
Beam spent parts of three days on the stand at the start of Scrushy’s trial in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala. Prosecutors and the defense agree there was a huge accounting scandal, but the question is Scrushy’s alleged role.
Scrushy is charged with conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice, perjury, money laundering and false corporate reporting.
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