Former Tyco top dog, Dennis Kozlowski and Tyco moneyman Mark Swartz were convicted today of grand larceny and a number of other charges in the retrial accusing them of massive corporate corruption at Tyco International.
The former CEO and CFO were convicted on all but one of the charges and the government is recommending 15 to 30 years in prison. The charges include 12 first degree counts of grand larceny, eight counts of first degree falsification of business records fourth degree conspiracy, and one count of violation of general business law. This added up to them stealing $150 million from the company and selling off their stock after artificially inflating the price for an additional cool $430 million.
This is the second trial for the pair of white-collar felons after the original run was declared a mistrial. One juror held out in the original trial but she also had claimed she received threatening phone calls.
There were several noteworthy changes in this trial. Jurors from the first trial complained of a disorganized prosecution. In the second trial, the prosecution concentrated on just a few items and left out things like the multi-million dollar birthday parties and $6000 shower curtains. This allowed the prosecutors to really focus on key areas for the trial.
One of biggest changes for the defense in the second trial was Kozlowski getting on the stand himself. He presented himself as a hardworking, self-made man whom merely too advantage of what his board offered him. The jury obviously didn’t buy it.
This is also just one in a recent list of big corporate scandals in which the executives doctored the books and inflated stock prices and sold them for a hefty profit. This is the same type of scandal Enron and Arthur Andersen got wrapped up, WorldCom and others. This may be the end to the recent trend of big corporate execs hitting the fan.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
