It Should Not Happen in America

Scrushy Richard

Description

This is the life story of a man who grew up in a small Southern town in a Christian family with all odds against him. He had visions and dreams of great businesses. He followed those dreams and rose to become the chairman of several multi-billion dollar companies, all three in New York, two of which were Fortune 500 companies, and one of which was in the SP 500. Everything he built and gained in his twenty-five years of building businesses was taken away from him and his family through vicious attacks from dishonest prosecutors, judges, and plaintiff attorneys. It should not have happened in America.

Sujets

• Gestion et management
• USA
• Commercial law
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: University of Georgia Press
• Date de parution: 30 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781588384447
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

NewSouth Books
105 S. Court Street
Montgomery, AL 36104
Copyright 2021 by E W Restoration Trust
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, Montgomery, Alabama.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Scrushy, Richard M., 1952- , author.
Title: It should not happen in America : from Selma to Wall Street- a journey of fire and faith / Richard M. Scrushy.
Description: Montgomery : NewSouth Books, [2021] | Includes index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021001813 (print) | LCCN 2021001814 (ebook) | ISBN 9781588384393 (hardback) | ISBN 9781588384447 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Scrushy, Richard M., 1952- | Businessmen-Alabama-Biography. | Executives-Alabama-Biography. | Ex-convicts-Alabama-Biography. | HealthSouth (Firm)-History. | Corporations-Corrupt practices-Alabama-History.
Classification: LCC HC107.A2 S27 2021 (print) | LCC HC107.A2 (ebook) | DDC 364.16/8092 [B]-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001813
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001814
Design by Randall Williams
Printed in the United States of America

The Black Belt , defined by its dark , rich soil , stretches across central Alabama. It was the heart of the cotton belt. It was and is a place of great beauty , of extreme wealth and grinding poverty , of pain and joy. Here we take our stand , listening to the past , looking to the future .
First, I dedicate this book to my wife Leslie and my nine children who suffered the most from the horrible abuse and miscarriage of our justice system. Leslie s strength and love made it possible for our family to get through this traumatic time in our lives. One of my attorneys said that the spouse and children suffer most when a family goes through the trauma ours went through. The love of family that I experienced during these times was phenomenal and totally essential to get me through these exceedingly difficult times.
The ability to remain strong and hopeful as we walked through this valley was due to the support I received from my brother Jerry Scrushy and his wife Kimberly and my wife Leslie s parents, Marianne and Dr. Donald Jones. They always stood strong by our side believing in my innocence and continue to give us the love that we so much need from them.
I also dedicate this book to my wonderful and loving parents, Gerald and Grace Scrushy, who believed in me and gave me a strong foundation to stand on. Leslie and I had some real friends that stood with us and by us through the most traumatic and difficult times. Those are the friends that are still standing with us giving continued support and love, and we thank them dearly.
Special thanks to Steven Mansfield, whose patience, guidance, contributions, encouragement, and coaching made the writing of this book possible.
Lastly, I give thanks to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who gave His life for us. It is my faith and belief in Him that gives me the strength to do all that I have been able to do in my life. Without Him I am nothing and can do nothing. All good gifts come from Him. My ability to dream and build companies comes from Him, and for that I give Him all the honor and all the glory for He is real, and He is God.
Contents
Preface
1 The Seedbed of Selma
2 The Anvil of Leadership
3 The Dream That Would Not Die
4 USA v. Scrushy, Part 1
5 Faith of My Fathers
6 USA v. Scrushy, Part II
7 A Fresh Season of Hell
8 An Absence of Law and Morals
9 Circus of Corruption
10 I Am 24463-001
11 Final Words
Appendix 1 The Testimony of a Juror
Appendix 2 Affidavit from a Longtime Republican Attorney
Appendix 3 Karl Rove s Non-Denial Denial
Appendix 4 Former State Attorneys General
Index
Sixteen pages of photographs follow page 72 .
Preface
I t should not have happened in America.
It certainly should not have happened twice.
But it did. And there is power in the story. It needs to be told.
I have a memory from that first horrible experience. It is a memory that comes back to me often. The date was November 4, 2004. Late on the afternoon of that day, I was sitting in a car with my wife just outside the gate to our home in Birmingham, Alabama. Though our children and the accumulations of a successful business career were all inside that home, we were forbidden to enter. Armed guards kept us not only from our possessions but also from our loved ones.
We were barred from entering our home because FBI agents were raiding us in search of evidence for a crime I had not committed. It did not matter that other men had already confessed to that crime. It did not matter that months earlier a federal judge had already said that prosecutors were in search of a mythical pink elephant, that there was no evidence I was guilty.
None of this made any difference. Though I lived in a country in which one is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, I was presumed guilty and then punished. My assets were frozen. My possessions were seized. FBI agents rifled through my home, even digging into underwear drawers, photographing and cataloguing everything I owned.
There was no reason for such tactics. Early in the morning of that same day, I had voluntarily surrendered myself to the FBI. I had heard they were coming for me. An acquaintance of mine had been called by a friend of his who worked in the FBI. The man was trying to arrange dinner with my friend and said in passing, Yeah, I ll be in town. We re flying to Birmingham to get some guy named Scrushy tomorrow. I knew then what was coming, and I peacefully turned myself in at the FBI headquarters downtown.
Voluntarily surrendering myself should have set the tone for my treatment. It did not. I was immediately fingerprinted and shackled. When I complained that the shackles were too tight, I was told to deal with it. My glasses were taken. A little laminated card printed with Psalm 91 was also taken. I was left in a cell for hours.
All of this happened even though I was not only innocent but had lived a productive life, played by the rules, and prospered in fulfillment of the American dream. I had founded HealthSouth, one of the most successful healthcare companies in American history. My work and energy assured quality medical care for millions, employed tens of thousands, and generated wealth that I used to fund philanthropic endeavors in my hometown of Birmingham and around the country. None of this made a difference as I sat shackled in a jail cell, with my life seemingly destroyed.
I T SHOULD NOT HAVE happened in America.
It should not have happened in part because, as I later discovered, it was an elaborate drama played out for political purposes. The driving force behind this treatment of me was an ambitious United States attorney named Alice Martin. She had set her sights on making a name for herself in an age when prosecutors fashioned reputations by going after highly visible white-collar criminals. The scandals of Enron and WorldCom filled the news in those days, and ambitious young prosecutors dreamed of the power and fame that would grace them if they could bag the big game of a corrupt corporate CEO. Alice Martin dreamed these same dreams.
She had reason to. She had been encouraged by powerful people. And she knew how to play the game. During the months that led to the raid on my home and my time in jail, my company, HealthSouth, had been under investigation. Alice Martin knew how to turn what should have been a quiet, thorough investigation into a media circus. She openly bragged of her relationship with the press and spent hours over cocktails courting their favor. Media outlets around the country received anonymous emails trashing me and asserting as fact what was unproven. We later learned that these emails came from the U.S. Justice Department, Alice Martin s employer.
But there was more and far worse. It was later revealed that during these months of investigation, Alice Martin was summoned to Karl Rove s office. Rove, of course, is the man who was called Bush s Brain. He was once the special assistant to the president of the United States. Rove told Martin that if she would prepare to indict me, President George W. Bush would fly to Birmingham on November 3, 2004, a Monday, and make a speech against white-collar crime. The next day, Martin could announce her indictment of me. It would make the Bush administration look tough on crime and make Martin into a hero. She would be rewarded with a judgeship and have her picture taken with the president.
This is exactly how it happened. On November 3, Bush flew to Birmingham and made a fiery speech against white-collar crime. The next day, Alice Martin indicted me for a crime I had not committed.
I don t know if she had her picture taken with the president. What I do know is that after a five-month trial and more than thirty million dollars in legal fees, a jury of my peers found me not guilty of the thirty-six charges against me. My acquittal came on June 28, 2005, a day I will remember the rest of my life.
It should have stopped there. I had endured enough for a lifetime. The lies, the attempts to humiliate me, the corruption, and the judicial misconduct should have ended with that jury verdict.
It didn t.
W ITHIN WEEKS OF THE end of that first trial, my attorneys learned that I was about to be indicted in an entirely different matter. I was about to undergo one of the most torturous, destructive, and utterly un-American experiences of political persecution and judicial corruption on record.
This occurred because I got caught in a crossfire. On one side of me was Don Siegelman, the popular Democratic governor of Alabama who was a rising star on the national political scene. On the other side of me were Republican federal attorneys, again in league with Karl Rove, who were determined to stop Governor Siegelman s political rise. They were also determined to protec