Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy proclaimed his innocence last week in his first post-imprisonment interview. Scrushy was the co-defendant with former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman in the most notorious political frame-up in recent American history.

Scrushy, at right with one of his nine children, told radio host Peter B. Collins that federal prosecutors offered before trial to let him go free if he would testify falsely against Siegelman, whom he was accused of bribing with a large donation to a non-profit organization Siegelman supported, the Alabama Education Foundation. Also, Scrushy said he had not supported the Democrat Siegelman's political campaigns, and that he did not meet with him about re-joining the unpaid health care board or about the contribution to the education foundation, which supported a state lottery to improve public education.

In a separate case involving prosecution overzealousness, Hollywood director John McTiernan began serving a year-long term on false statement charges. The Die Hard director, 62, was found guilty in the wiretapping scandal involving private detective Anthony Pellicano. McTiernan was convicted of two counts of making false statements to the FBI and one count of perjury for lying to a federal judge during the period when the defendant wanted to withdraw his earlier guilty plea. The investigation was to determine whether Pellicano, a successful private detective, illegally wiretapped producer Chuck Roven while he and McTiernan were remaking the movie Rollerball in 2002.

Federal authorities abused their vast powers in the McTiernan case at needless expense to taxpayers, as I wrote three years ago in Feds Bully 'Die Hard' McTiernan Into Plea for False Statements.