Bill Owens

Mr. Owens is currently most widely known for his involvement in the fraud, and resulting scandal, at HealthSouth. He has just completed his prison sentence, moved into a one-bedroom apartment, and is starting a new life. He hopes to use what he has learned the hard way to make a positive difference in the lives of others. He is willing to share, without censor, whatever may be of value to help curb unethical behavior and prevent future fraud.

Bill grew up in Troy, AL, the youngest of six kids from a poor family. After the 11th grade, he dropped out of school to marry and support his new wife and their newborn. He got a job, took his GED, and soon enrolled at Troy State University. While working full-time jobs as a Manager at McDonald's, and then a Computer Operator, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from Troy State with a B.S. in Business Administration, Accounting and Computer Science concentrations, in June of 1981. He made one 'B' during his junior year, ironically in Auditing.

Directly after college, he joined Ernst & Whinney, earned his CPA and CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor) designations, became a Senior Accountant, then Supervisor for its Healthcare Practice in Alabama, specializing in Healthcare Audits and 3rd-Party Reimbursement Consulting. In March of 1986, a client, HealthSouth Rehabilitation Corporation, recruited him to be its Controller.

HealthSouth was still a small private company with only a few locations, approximately $4.5M in revenue and $12M in assets, soon to go public. When the fraud began in early 1987, Bill was one of three in the room; when it ended, 16 years later, he was one of two in the room. He devised the scheme that hid the fraud through 1994, was part of the team that developed the acquisition strategy, and using those acquisitions to continue hiding the fraud through 1997, and developed the plan to lower analyst's expectations in '97 and '98.

Almost all cash had been drained from the company by February 2000 when Bill took the reins as Executive Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. He restructured a $3.2B debt portfolio, and, with a goal of reporting legitimate numbers within five years, but without the luxury of telling anyone that wasn't involved in the fraud, he began aggressively repairing the company's operations to cut costs, increase patient volumes, improve pricing and efficiency.

As part of a strategy to split HealthSouth into two companies, and allow Richard to relinquish all responsibilities, save his position as Chairman, Bill assumed the roles of President and Chief Operating Officer in August, 2001 and then Chief Executive Officer in August, 2002. He was removed as CEO and reinstated as CFO in January 2003. The SEC was circling HealthSouth on Insider Trading allegations and issued subpoenas to several of its executives in early March 2003.

After leaving a subpoena unopened for eight days and a cathartic evening, Bill decided to reveal the fraud in its entirety. He was one of two executives to voluntarily meet with the Department of Justice. At its height, HealthSouth had over 2000 locations throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico, The UK, Australia and Saudi Arabia, with approximately $4B in reported revenue, $8B in reported assets.