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CORRECTED: Ex-HealthSouth CEO Scrushy sentenced to prison

2007-06-29

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MONTGOMERY, Alabama (Reuters) - Ousted HealthSouth Corp. <HLS.N> Chief Executive Richard Scrushy, acquitted two years ago in a major corporate fraud case, and former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman were both sentenced to prison on Thursday for bribery.

A federal judge sentenced Scrushy to six years and 10 months in prison and Siegelman to seven years and four months after they were convicted of involvement in a scheme to manipulate hospital building permissions that favored HealthSouth.

"This was a good day for justice," prosecutor Stephen Feaga said. "Hopefully they will get the message."

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WASHINGTON -- President Bush moved one step closer to a constitutional showdown with Democrats on Thursday, as the White House asserted executive privilege in refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents related to the dismissal of federal prosecutors.

The move prompted Democrats to accuse the White House of stonewalling, and seemed to put the legislative and executive branches on a collision course that could land them in court.

It was only the second time in Bush's presidency that he has formally asserted executive privilege, the power first recognized by the Supreme Court in a 1974 Watergate-era case.

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WASHINGTON — The House Natural Resources Committee announced Thursday that it will hold hearings on Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in Klamath River water management that many think led to the die-off of more than 70,000 salmon four years ago.

"It certainly appears that this administration will stop at nothing to achieve political gain from natural-resources disasters," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the panel.

Three dozen House Democrats from Oregon and California asked for the hearing in a letter to Rahall after The Washington Post reported on details of Cheney's intervention.

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WASHINGTON — Don Siegelman, a Democrat who served as governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003, was sentenced Thursday in Montgomery, Ala., to more than seven years in prison and fined $50,000.

He was convicted of bribery and obstruction of justice last year in a trial that he said was engineered by Bush administration officials who wanted to eliminate him as a threat to Republican dominance in the South.

U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller denied a request from Siegelman's lawyers that he remain free while his case was on appeal, and the 61-year-old populist politician was led off to jail.

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