Former Governor Convicted of Bribery
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -A former governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, and a former HealthSouth chief executive, Richard Scrushy, were convicted yesterday in federal court in a bribery scheme that derailed Siegelman’s campaign to retake his former office.
Siegelman, 60, was accused of trading government favors for campaign donations when he was governor from 1999 to 2003 and lieutenant governor from 1995 to 1999.
Scrushy, who once ran the Birmingham-based chain of rehabilitation clinics, was accused of arranging $500,000 in donations to Siegelman’s campaign for a state lottery in exchange for a seat on a state hospital regulatory board.
The case was tried as Siegelman sought the Democratic nomination for governor, and the trial put him in court during the final weeks of the campaign. He lost to Lieutenant Governor Lucy Baxley in the June 6 Democratic primary and blamed the charges for his defeat.
