MONTGOMERY –Richard Scrushy, a former Troy University Board of Trustees member, held a press conference in Montgomery last Thursday as he pleaded for a pardon or investigation from Washington for his felony convictions. The former HealthSouth CEO alleged that he has new evidence “proving prosecutorial misconduct” and political conspiracy during his 2006 trial involving the bribery of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.
With his back to the Frank M. Johnson federal courthouse, where he was convicted nearly 20 years ago, Scrushy claimed to have proof of exculpatory evidence that would prove his innocence. Standing behind him were two of his children and his wife, Leslie Scrushy, who was hired as Troy University’s Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communication last January.
“I want this off of me,” Scrushy said. “Nobody wants to die with some kind of black cloud, some kind of lie on them.
“I don't want that marking on my back because it's just not true, and I want that taken off of me . . . my nine children, and my nine grandchildren, I don't want them to have to live thinking that their granddaddy was a criminal of some kind and did something wrong and bribed some governor when he didn't bribe him.”
Richard Scrushy’s bribery trial began just months after being found not guilty of 85 white-collar indictments he faced in connection with the national HealthSouth accounting incident. In that case, he was accused of directing his employees to inflate the company’s earnings. He was acquitted on all charges in 2005 – as told in The Netflix Documentary series “Trial by Media.” However, a civil court still ordered him to pay $2.87 billion for damages related to the fraud.
Richard Scrushy was then convicted of bribing Siegelman in exchange for a seat on the Certificate of Need Review Board, which would have had oversight over HealthSouth.
Scrushy has always maintained his innocence, even outlining his victimization in his book “It Should Never Happen in America: From Selma to Wall Street―'A Journey of Fire and Faith'.”
He held the press conference to share what he said is “bombshell” new evidence. He made the claim that Nick Bailey, a former Siegelman aide, apologized to him for his testimony against him in court. Scrushy said Bailey told him that he had had 24 interviews with the FBI but that prosecutors only provided his defense with five.
He did not provide evidence of Baily’s statements, nor did he specify any details about the content of those interviews.
“They intentionally, intentionally, withheld critical evidence that proves our innocence,” Scrushy said. “We know that today, and we have the proof to document it.
“Federal law is clear, and without exception, that type of prosecutorial misconduct and willful expression of evidence of innocence, is blatantly unconstitutional, and it's criminal.”
Scrushy has not yet filed any kind of legal motion but said he plans to soon. He is requesting that President Donald Trump’s pardon Czar, Alabama-native Alice Johnson, review his case.
Scrushy also revealed a new website, richardscrushypress.com, that he said contained new, documented evidence. There were two documents on the website – and neither one of them appear to be new.
“It's too much to go into detail today and here,” Scrushy told media, “But I want you to go to the website and read it.”
The first document is a 2009 whistleblower report by Tamarah Grimes, who worked on the prosecuting team in Scrushy’s trial. In the report, which seems to have been annotated by Scrushy, Grimes accused prosecutors of “molding” Nick Bailey’s testimony and other improper behaviors. She also accused the prosecutors of opening a criminal investigation against in her retaliation for filing a complaint against them. The Department of Justice found the accusations unsubstantiated in 2009.
The second document was from 2016, written by the now deceased Elmer Harris, who was the CEO of Alabama Power. The document claims that Harris recommended Scrushy for the Certificate of Need Review Board and that he believed Siegelman’s and Scrushy’s convictions to be political and unjust.
Leslie Scrushy said her husband’s legal battles are a part of spiritual warfare.
“I had to look through and see the spiritual aspect of all of it, and on the day that he was arraigned here and they read the charges, he was charged with [Federal] Statute 666, so, that was very clear to me where this attack was coming from,” Leslie Scrushy said. “Then, when the prosecutors rested their case, they rested their case on June 6 of 2006. 6-6-6.
“From my perspective, it was a conspiracy that required Franklin, Feaga and Fuller all to accomplish.”
Leslie Scrushy is referencing then-Acting U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Feaga and then-U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller.
“If you look at their names, they all start with the letter F, which is the 6th letter of the alphabet,” she said. “That was part of how I made it through, was to continue to pray to God, to thank Him for all of the blessings that we see.”
According to a 2003 article from The Troy Messenger, Richard Scrushy has had a relationship with Troy University for decades. Troy’s football field used to be named “Scrushy field” after he donated $1 million to help Troy University become a Division I-A school.
The Troy Messenger article stated: “‘The other major gift to TSU football,’ Hawkins said, ‘was a financial contribution that allowed Troy State to meet minimum ticket sales requirements in order to make the leap to Division I-A. ‘Scrushy did a great service for the university,’ Hawkins said, explaining how Scrushy bought approximately 5,000 tickets in order to meet the NCAA’s baseline requirements.”
At the press conference, Scrushy began to cry while describing how his 5-year stint in federal prison was hard on his family.
“My little girl right here was 4 years old when they put me in chains and pulled her out of my arms,” Scrushy said, gesturing to his daughter, Grace, behind him before pointing to his son, Jaden. “He was 2 years old.
“They sent me off to prison. Five years they locked me up . . . I'm telling you all right now, I don't know how any man on this earth could get up every morning and look at his face in the mirror, knowing that he did what he did not only to me, but to my children.”
As of deadline, no official motions have been filed by Scrushy or his attorney and no alleged new evidence has been made available for media review.
AnnaBrooke Rainey Photos