Scrushy’s house goes for $7.4 M

By Laura Johnson | Alex City Outlook

Published Monday, November 9, 2009

Richard Scrushy’s multi-million dollar Lake Martin home was sold at auction Monday to a HealthSouth representative, while the former CEO sat behind bars inside a federal prison in Texas.

The home and a nearby airplane hangar went to Wade Tucker on behalf of HealthSouth Corp. for almost $8 million. Tucker’s attorneys will now begin marketing the property for sale. He acquired the properties on behalf of HealthSouth by electing to credit Scrushy in the same amount for the nearly $3 billion the former CEO owes the company and its former shareholders.

“The man that started all this is in a jail cell and we’re standing here making a right from a wrong,” Tucker said to a crowd of reporters.

Sheriff Jimmy Abbett began the auction on the steps of the Tallapoosa County Courthouse in Dadeville shortly after 11 a.m. with an opening bid of $400,000 for the hangar. One of Tucker’s attorneys, John Somerville, who bid on Tucker’s behalf, claimed the winning bid at $435,000.

Abbett then opened the bidding for the home and two adjoining parcels of land at $4 million. Somerville immediately called out a $7.4 million bid matching the property’s appraised value.

Somerville was the lone bidder in the crowd on the courthouse lawn. The bids went unanswered and the home and hangar became the property of Tucker and the HealthSouth Corp. in a process that ended almost as soon as it began.

“We hoped that someone would step forward and buy the property, but nobody did,” Somerville said.

Abbett took ownership of the property earlier this year when a judge ordered the property to be seized and sold to satisfy the multi-billion dollar ruling. The judicial order specified that the sheriff could not show the property prior to the sale, meaning potential bids may have been driven down because they had no access to the property before Monday.

“(The outcome) was expected,” John Haley, a lawyer for the shareholders, said. “You hate to sell property on the courthouse steps that is not the best way to market anything.”

Tucker and his attorneys began developing plans to market the property last week and plan to sell it as soon as possible.

“We want to market it so that it, as our asset, can be sold at maximum value,” Somerville said. “This is not personal, but we have a job to do and our job is to maximize profit for shareholders.”

Tucker, who has served as the face of the shareholders since he filed the first lawsuit against Scrushy in 2002, stood quietly on the lawn and watched the auction. He said that he was satisfied with the outcome of the auction and the legal proceeding that lead to it.

“I think throughout the years everything has gone our way,” Tucker said. “It might not have gone to court without someone stepping forward and I happened to be that person.”

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