The defense team for former HealthSouth Chief Executive Richard Scrushy on Thursday accused a former chief financial officer of the healthcare company of being a liar, heavy drinker and womanizer in an attempt to undermine his potentially damaging testimony.

Aaron Beam, HealthSouth’s CFO from 1984 through 1997, had testified that senior finance officials beginning in mid-1996 used false entries and bogus accounting to inflate the company’s earnings with Scrushy’s full knowledge and blessing.

On cross examination on his third day on the stand, Scrushy’s attorneys tried to rattle Beam, one of five former HealthSouth CFOs who pleaded guilty to fraud charges in the accounting scandal, by repeatedly questioning his memory and his character.

Referring to a 1996 meeting in which Beam said Scrushy told him and another officer, William Owens, to “fix” HealthSouth’s numbers, lead defense attorney James Parkman asked if Scrushy wasn’t just referring to so-called aggressive accounting rather than actual fraud.

“Did he tell you on that occasion, ‘I want you to go and do something unlawful?’ Did he tell you ‘I want you to do something illegal?’” Parkman asked Beam.

“He did not use those words,” responded the company’s first CFO, one of its founders along with Scrushy.

Scrushy is facing a 58-count indictment, including charges of conspiracy, securities and wire fraud, mail fraud, filing false financial statements and money laundering. Prosecutors have accused him of directing a $2.7 billion fraud by ordering the overstatement of the Birmingham-based company’s earnings and assets from 1996 through 2002.

Scrushy’s defense lawyers say the conspiracy was led by Owens - another former CFO - and carried out without Scrushy’s knowledge.

“Our defense is the CEO was lied to,” Donald Watkins, another of Scrushy’s lawyers, told reporters outside the Birmingham courthouse.

Parkman attempted to paint Beam as a heavy drinker, womanizer and liar.

Beam, who owned a nightclub with Scrushy, said he did not think he was drinking too much, but admitted to being involved with women other than his wife and getting one of them a temporary job at HealthSouth.

“Yesterday I went through a list of people you have lied to,” Parkman said, referring to the HealthSouth board, analysts and investors.

“I have one addition, did you lie to your wife?” Parkman asked Beam. The former CFO replied that he had.

Owens is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution and target of the defense. His lawyer, Frederick Helmsing, was in court monitoring the proceedings.

“Mr. Parkman is doing an excellent job of cross examining,” Helmsing told reporters.

“But he has not been able to shake (Beam) from his core statement of ‘Scrushy asked us to fix the numbers or make it happen,’ it’s all the same thing,” Helmsing said.

Scrushy disagreed.

“It was very clear from the government witness that I never asked him to do anything illegal,” Scrushy told reporters upon leaving the courthouse.