HealthSouth Corp. co-founder Aaron Beam was sentenced to three months in prison for his part in a $2.7 billion accounting scandal that inflated earnings at the health care company.
He had faced a maximum of up to 30 years in prison.
Beam, 61, HealthSouth's first chief financial officer who had pleaded guilty to bank fraud, was ordered to forfeit $275,000 and will be placed in a supervised release program for one year following his prison term. He was also fined $10,000. He had faced fewer charges than other HealthSouth employees implicated in the fraud, but left the company in 1997 and the statute of limitations had run out on additional charges. Beam, was one of five former chief financial officers to plead guilty to fraud charges and testify against former chief executive Richard Scrushy.
Scrushy was acquitted in late June on all of the three dozen counts he faced in connection with the fraud. He still faces civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
