This week in Richard Scrushy: Tracking assets
By Wade KwonLast week, Richard Scrushy returned to Birmingham to answer attorneys’ questions about his many, many assets. The HealthSouth founder and convicted executive owes some $2.87 billion as a result of a civil suit this year.
The Birmingham News has followed his deposition closely. A few highlights …
• Scrushy plans to return to the ministry and record Christian songs he’s writing in prison in Beaumont, Texas. Where he once earned millions annually, he now makes 18 cents an hour, teaching math, English, science and reading.
• He gave guns and his Corvette to associates, and set up a $24,000 trust each for seven of his children in 2007.
• “I can’t believe that HealthSouth would be doing this to me,” Scrushy said Wednesday. He said he was unable to recall where certain high-priced pieces of jewelry were, including a diamond choker and bracelet set ($16,000), a five-strand diamond bracelet ($25,000) and a pair of diamond earrings ($25,000).
• “My company that I built for 20 years has been reduced to chasing my dead father’s tractor?” Scrushy yelled. “You’re picking at my dad’s dead bones. We’re reaching a point where it’s ridiculous.”
• Scrushy referred questions about his millions of dollars in holdings to his accountant Phillip Powell. But upon examining a list of assets submitted by Powell, Scrushy said, “I think his accounting may be wrong, and I would like to discuss it with him.”
• His assets are entangled in corporations, real estate deals and loans, and Scrushy has been found of being in contempt for not cooperating with the asset search.
More Richard Scrushy stories from the Birmingham News.
