HLSH...jm...this one?
Former HealthSouth executive pleads guilty
Thursday August 28, 6:17 pm ET
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Aug 28 (Reuters) - The fourteenth executive from HealthSouth Corp.(Other OTC:HLSH.PK - News) has pleaded guilty to fraud charges in an accounting scandal at the largest U.S. rehabilitation center operator.
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Will Hicks, who was vice president of investments at HealthSouth and was responsible for managing its investment portfolio, was charged with conspiracy to make false statements to auditors and maintain false books and records.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Propst asked Hicks repeatedly whether he would like the judge to accept the guilty plea.
"Yes your honor, I wish you to accept my plea of guilty," Hicks replied to the judge.
Ira Lee Sorkin, Hicks's attorney with Carter Ledyard & Milburn in New York, said outside the courtroom that Hicks was ordered not to tell the auditors about the true value of an assisted living facility investment that HealthSouth had made.
"He (Hicks) feared for his job if he did not do this," Sorkin said.
As part of his plea agreement, Hicks will cooperate with prosecutors, Sorkin said.
"If he is asked to testify, he will do so," he added.
So far, 14 HealthSouth executives -- including all five of its former chief financial officers -- have pleaded guilty to inflating the earnings and financial results at the operator of rehabilitation, diagnostic imaging and outpatient surgery centers.
Hicks joined HealthSouth in March 1999 after serving as a principal in 21st Century Health Ventures, a company he owned with HealthSouth founder and former chief executive Richard Scrushy and former HealthSouth chief financial officer Michael Martin.
Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 15, 2004, and prosecutors have indicated there could be an adjournment on that date, Sorkin said.
Richard Wiedis, senior trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, and Richard Smith, deputy chief of the fraud section at the U.S. Dept. of Justice, were the prosecuting attorneys. |
