Possumblog

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.)

Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu.

This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things.

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

What is this, some sort of race?

Ex-CFO to plead guilty

VAL WALTON and MICHAEL TOMBERLIN
News staff writers

HealthSouth Corp.'s former treasurer and chief financial officer agreed Monday to plead guilty in the company's massive accounting fraud that federal authorities contend was directed by ex-CEO Richard Scrushy.

Federal prosecutors charged Malcolm "Tadd" McVay, 41, the 10th former HealthSouth executive to enter into a plea agreement and assist investigators, in the financial deception at HealthSouth, the nation's largest operator of outpatient surgery and rehabilitation centers.[...]

Number 10, eh? Looks like the Feds are ahead of the Iraqi Card Game by two at the moment--of course, I don't think they have fifty-two to round up, and fleeing to Syria is not really an option.

[...] McVay's name has already surfaced on a few occasions in the hearing in which Scrushy seeks to get millions of his assets unfrozen.

On April 9, SEC lawyers asked Scrushy a battery of questions in which he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Among them was whether McVay asked for a $500,000 bonus or certification contract before signing the company's third-quarter earnings statement in 2002.

McVay's name also came up last week when Thomas Sjoblom, a Scrushy lawyer, asked [former CFO Weston] Smith if a group of HealthSouth executives had met at McVay's home in late 2002 to plan a "coup" to push the founder out of the company. Smith said he knew of no such meeting. [...]

There was an article in the paper Sunday about Sjoblom, one of Scrushy's attorneys in this case, and a former SEC attorney himself. In it, he heavily discounts the SEC's case against his client, but perceptions being what they are, it certainly doesn't look good when your client pleads the Fifth on a laundry list of questions, nor when all the people who had access to the moneybag are rolling over right-and-left.

Sounds, looks, acts like a duck.

posted by Terry at 8:18:00 AM

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