The Denver Post Al Lewis Column
By Al Lewis, The Denver Post
Nov. 9--WRAPPING HIMSELF IN CIVIL RIGHTS: Selma, Ala., 1965.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. and 600 marchers cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. All they want to do is vote.
State troopers attack them with tear gas, nightsticks and bullwhips.
It will be remembered as "Bloody Sunday" and spawn the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Flash forward four decades and there's a new civil rights movement in Alabama. But it is not about the disenfranchised descendants of slaves, who feared burning crosses and redneck mobs that might string them up in the night.
This time, it's about a white guy falsely accused of cooking the books of a publicly traded health care company -- or so claims the website of HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy. Check it out at richardmscrushy.com: "Born in 1952 in Selma, Ala. -- a town known as the birthplace of the civil rights movement -- Richard Scrushy is now fighting for his own rights and freedoms in the face of false allegations."
The site notes that Scrushy was a Boy Scout, sang in a church choir, joined Little League, played piano and guitar. As a youth, he worked at a hamburger stand, a hotel and a gas station. He went to college, became a respiratory therapist, climbed a corporate ladder, then founded HealthSouth.
At HealthSouth, Scrushy oversaw a $6.5 billion acquisition spree, possibly aided by the phony accounting that prosecutors allege.
Scrushy took over rehabilitation, surgery and diagnostic clinics nationwide, including several in Colorado. And in serving the sick, he paid himself a fortune.
Last Tuesday, prosecutors sacked Scrushy with an 85-count indictment accusing him of money laundering, mail, wire and securities fraud, and making false statements.
What makes him easier to prosecute than most alleged scoundrels is the fact that he certified that his books were accurate. He is the first executive to be tried under the new Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
But Scrushy vows to defend his innocence, even after 14 of his former executives pleaded guilty, including five former chief financial officers who implicated him.
"I am deeply disappointed to have my innocence questioned and contested," Scrushy declares in a website missive. "I trust and pray that you will keep standing by me as I reach my triumphant end of this long journey to truth."
Scrushy's civil rights movement may be about just one person, but it is historical in its scope.
Blacks fought for access to public bathrooms and water fountains, desegregated schools and the right to ride near the front of a bus.
Scrushy fights for his multimillion-dollar homes; nearly 400 acres of land; Picasso, Renoir and Miro paintings; a 2000 Rolls-Royce, a 92-foot yacht, two Cadillac Escalades, a Lamborghini and seven classic cars -- including a 1929 Cadillac, a $290,000 racing boat and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of diamond jewelry -- all part of at least $279 million in alleged loot that prosecutors want Scrushy to forfeit.
So far, Scrushy's more basic rights have been observed, particularly his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and his First Amendment right to free speech. Scrushy declared his innocence in a "60 Minutes" interview with Mike Wallace. Then later, his lawyer invoked the Fifth before a congressional panel.
"In this day of widespread corporate scandals and the lynch-mob mentality of the federal government and the media, the importance of the right to assert the protections guaranteed by the Constitution and the rules of criminal process cannot be overstated," said attorney Thomas V. Sjoblom.
On this point, Scrushy's lawyer is right. For this, Scrushy can thank civil rights movements of the past.
What an unlikely hero to carry the torch.
Al Lewis' column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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