SEC Charges HealthSouth, CEO with Fraud

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday that it has charged healthcare services group HealthSouth Corp. and Chief Executive Richard Scrushy with "a massive accounting fraud."

The commission said its complaint "alleges that since 1999, at the insistence of Scrushy, HealthSouth systematically overstated its earnings by at least $1.4 billion in order to meet or exceed Wall Street earnings expectations." [...]

Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. Talk about being seduced by hubris.

In any event, there were breathless, but non-specific, reports last night at the beginning of the early-late evening news on the local FOX station (With no network programming, they are REAL heavy into local news--5, 5:30, 6, 9, 10) that the FBI had the HealthSouth complex surrounded. No word at first why (you know, so you'll stay tuned), and with the tension about the coming invasion of Iraq, it could have been any sort of Bad Thing going on--gunmen, bogeymen, bong sellers.

I joked to Reba that they were probably after poor Dick, and he was probably locked in an office with a shredder. Come to find out, when the reporter finally did do her report, they indeed where there carrying out a search warrant in conjunction with an SEC investigation. Dick wasn't really there, though.

Oh well. If nothing else, the lusciously zaftig Nikki Preede was doing the story--she's my local equivalent to the Pride of Wheeling.
posted by Terry at 11:10:00 AM