A Medical Device Daily

A federal judge late last week seated a racially diverse jury for the trial of Don Siegelman, a former governor of Alabama, two of his aides when he was governor, and Richard Scrushy, former chief executive of HealthSouth (Birmingham, Alabama).

Siegelman, the aides and Scrushy have been implicated in a bribery case, with Scrushy accused of paying Siegelman so that he could be seated on a panel given the task of placing new hospital facilities throughout the state.

U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller rejected a request by Scrushy's attorney to delay the start of the trial, scheduled to begin May 1.

Seated are 12 jurors and six alternates for the trial, equally divided by gender and race: nine women and nine men, nine blacks and nine whites.

Scrushy's attorney, Art Leach, sought a delay in the trial because the judge says there won't be a ruling before May 1 on a major issue raised by Scrushy. Scrushy contended that blacks were under-represented in the process for compiling pools of potential jurors for the grand jury and the trial jury in the case. Last year he was acquitted by an all-black jury on a variety of charges alleging that he orchestrated a multimillion-dollar accounting fraud at HealthSouth.

If the judge sides with Scrushy, the charges in the case would be thrown out.

Siegelman opposed a delay because he hopes to get a verdict before he stands for election in the Democratic primary for governor on June 5.

A prosecutor in the case said he expects Scrushy to lose his argument about the jury process.

In other legalities:

• The law firm of Finkelstein, Thompson & Loughran reported filing a lawsuit seeking class action status vs. St. Jude Medical (St. Paul, Minnesota) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota for the class period between Jan. 25 and April 4.

The lawsuit alleges that St. Jude violated federal securities laws by issuing false/misleading public statements regarding the sales success and prospects of a major St. Jude product, its implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) systems. On Jan. 25, St. Jude reported that 4Q ICD product sales were $280 million, a 62% increase over the comparable quarter of 2004 and that ICD product sales for the full-year 2005 were $1.007 billion, representing a 72% increase over 2004. This complaint alleges this was the result of an effort by St. Jude to push sales of ICDs into 4Q05 so as to inflate the stock price and achieve extraordinary personal benefits for top insiders.

On April 4, St. Jude shocked the market by announcing its financial and operating results were well below analysts' expectations and that sales of ICDs were declining. On this news, shares of St. Jude fell $5.05 per share, on extremely high volume, to close at $36.25 – a drop of more than 10%.

• National Home Health Care (Scarsdale, New York) reported that the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Haven, Connecticut, has closed its investigation into possible violations of certain federal healthcare laws by its Connecticut home healthcare subsidiary.

It said the subsidiary had received a subpoena seeking the production of documents for October 2003.

National Home Health Care is a provider of home healthcare and staffing services in the Northeast.

Viasys secures ISO certification

Viasys Healthcare (Conshohocken, Pennsylvania) reported that its Viasys Respiratory Care subsidiary has been audited by the British Standards Institution and awarded certification under International Organization for Standardization ISO 13485:2003.

The certification covers a range of products, including ventilators, oximeter products and respiratory care equipment, the company said.