$tacks Upon $tacks Of Moolah

[sludgehound]

"big rat" responsible LOL

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., May 18 - As federal prosecutors sought on Wednesday to portray Richard M. Scrushy as a "pied piper" who led more than a dozen executives at HealthSouth to a sweeping $2.7 billion accounting fraud, defense lawyers pointed to another HealthSouth executive as the "big rat" responsible for the wrongdoing.

Employing a folksy and colorful Southern style that he has used throughout this nearly four-month criminal trial, Jim Parkman, one of the defense lawyers, told the jury in closing arguments that Mr. Scrushy was a victim of a far-ranging conspiracy by his underlings. Mr. Parkman even displayed a poster-size cartoon of a rat with a piece of cheese to attack the credibility of one of the government's main witnesses, William T. Owens, a former HealthSouth chief financial officer who testified that Mr. Scrushy was behind the fraud.

"It looks just like him," Mr. Parkman said of the rat drawing, referring to Mr. Owens.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/business/19scrushy.html