A Medical Device Daily

Richard Scrushy, ex-CEO of HealthSouth (Birmingham, Alabama) and former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman have lost another legal round in a 2006 bribery case.

The conviction stemmed from $500,000 in contributions made by Scrushy to a campaign fund for a state lottery, arguably a payoff for Siegelman reappointing Scrushy to a state hospital licensing board.

The original U.S. District Court conviction was upheld this past March by a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta (Medical Device Daily, March 10, 2009).

Siegelman and Scrushy had asked for a review of the case by the full Court of Appeals, but it refused to do so in a decision reported last Friday.

According to a New York Times report on the case, attorneys for the two men indicated their plans to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, with one attorney saying "the chances are good" that the high court would hear the case, because "what the government has to prove to send a political figure to jail is a matter of national interest."