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Microcap & Penny Stocks : TGL WHAAAAAAAT! Alerts, thoughts, discussion. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StockDung who wrote (142315)	3/1/2005 12:48:43 AM
From: StocksDATsoar	Respond to of 150070

wow, what an amazing read that was. pretty much sums it up, eh?

To: StockDung who wrote (142315)	3/1/2005 1:28:29 AM
From: StocksDATsoar	Respond to of 150070

GEEEEEEEEZ HLSH Scrushy could receive what amounts to a life sentence and have to forfeit as much as $278 million in assets if convicted. (COMTEX) B: Scrushy Defense Goes After Former CFO ( AP Online ) B: Scrushy Defense Goes After Former CFO ( AP Online ) BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Feb 28, 2005 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Lawyers for ousted HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy sought on Monday to portray a former HealthSouth finance chief - not Scrushy - as the head of a huge fraud at the rehabilitation chain. In cross-examination of former assistant controller Ken Livesay, defense attorney Art Leach brought out that former chief financial officer Bill Owens first came up with the idea of inflating HealthSouth Corp.'s fixed-asset accounts as an audit loomed. "We had run out of ideas," said Livesay, among 15 former executives who have pleaded guilty. "We had a problem on the balance sheet of more than $400 million if we were going to make it through that audit." To make it possible to hide fraud in fixed-asset accounts, Livesay said, Owens brought more people into the conspiracy. Owens, who secretly recorded talks with Scrushy and testified earlier in the trial, has also pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors. Referring to a corporate acquisition that workers used to hide some of the fraud, Leach suggested to Livesay that someone like Scrushy - who is not an accountant - would have had a hard time understanding what was going on. "This is pretty esoteric accounting stuff, isn't it?" he asked. "Yes," Livesay said in his fourth day on the stand. Prosecutors claim Scrushy was behind a scheme to overstate HealthSouth earnings by about $2.7 billion for seven years beginning in 1996. Scrushy made millions from stock options and bonuses during the conspiracy, they contend. The defense claims subordinates including Owens and Livesay used lies to hide the fraud from Scrushy, allowing them to earn more money as they climbed the corporate ladder. Livesay, who earned a $45,000 salary in his first year at HealthSouth in 1989, said he was making $300,000 annually in salary and bonuses by the time he left in 2003. Livesay said he has since lost his license as a certified public accountant but is working as an accountant. Free on $10 million bond, Scrushy is accused of conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, perjury and false corporate reporting in the first case of a CEO being charged with violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Scrushy could receive what amounts to a life sentence and have to forfeit as much as $278 million in assets if convicted. By JAY REEVES Associated Press Writer Copyright 2005 Associated Press, All rights reserved -0- APO Priority=r APO Category=1310 (PROFILE (COUNTRY:United States; ISOCOUNTRY3:USA; UNTOP:021; APGROUP:NorthAmerica;) ) KEYWORD: BIRMINGHAM, Ala. SUBJECT CODE: 1310 * end of story *