Scrushy Auction Makes for Great Holiday Gifts

Thanks to a civil suit and a bit of accounting fraud, former HealthSouth chief Richard Scrushy's art collection, wife's jewelry and yacht are up for grabs.
By Jason Notte ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Want to reap the spoils of corporate fraud without doing any of the jail time? Just wait until an actual corporate fraud's assets go up for auction, as former HealthSouth (HLS) chief executive Richard Scrushy's wife's jewels did today.

Thanks to a successful civil suit last year by HealthSouth shareholders that found Scrushy liable for accounting fraud that nearly killed his company, many of Scrushy's more lavish possessions have gone on the block at

Sotheby's

(BID) - Get Report

to help pay a $2.8 billion settlement that has ballooned to $3.2 billion with interest. As part of the deal, 20 pieces of jewelry that once belonged to Leslie Scrushy are being put up for sale after she surrendered them to settle claims that the gems were merely a shelter for the assets Richard didn't want seized by HealthSouth.

The 20 pieces represent $1.3 million of the $3 million worth of jewelry Leslie Scrushy handed over and include a

20-carat diamond ring

valued at between $500,000 and $700,000. Some of the other "property of a southern collector," as Sotheby's refers to it, includes a

platinum-and-diamond bracelet

estimated between $150,000 and $200,000 and a

platinum, diamond and ruby ring

valued at $40,000 to $60,000. Bargain hunters looking to keep their purchases to less than the price of a Toyota Camry can score a

4.71-carat platinum-and-diamond ring

for $15,000 to $20,000.

If getting time off for today's auction is a problem, fear not. Freeman's auction house in Philadelphia just announced that it will be putting approximately 20 works of art from Scrushy's HealthSouth shareholder-owned private residence in Vestavia, Ala., up for bid on May 15. This isn't some Lehman Brothers collection of glorified office art, but a private museum including works by Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Marc Chagall and contemporary artists Patrick Hughes and Donald Roller Wilson. No estimate has been placed on the value of the collection, but Picasso's

Tête de femme no.5 (Portrait de Dora Maar)

alone is valued between $30,000 and $40,000.

While these are all of the Scrushy possessions up for auction, they're certainly not the only ones that can be had at the right price. Investors bought the 16,000-square-foot, 10-acre Vestavia mansion property for $4.25 million last year and are still trying to sell it. The same holds true for Scrushy's Lake Martin, Ala., compound -- including 300 yards of shoreline, a swimming pool and a seaplane hangar -- that cost shareholders $7.4 million. A savvy investor may be able to work out a package deal for the compound and a Scrushy's $1.5 million former home on Ono Island.

Beyond that, most of Scrushy's really fun toys have already been sold. Six items from the Lake Martin estate, including a $53,000 35-foot Cigarette fiberglass boat, took in $83,000 last year. His collection of 19 vehicles went for $850,000 at auction last year, including a 1929 Cadillac Phaeton that went for $170,000. His 92-foot yacht, the Chez Soiree, is valued at $1.8 million, owned by shareholders and still available to last-minute holiday shoppers.

-- Written by Jason Notte in Boston.

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Jason Notte is a reporter for TheStreet.com. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Esquire.com, Time Out New York, the Boston Herald, The Boston Phoenix, Metro newspaper and the Colorado Springs Independent.

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