The day of reckoning has come and gone for Tyco's management, with both Kozlowski and Swartz receiving 25 years in prison and a demand for $135 million in restitution payments (plus another $70 million fine, just for Kozlowski). Leading up to the sentencing, Kozlowski appeared to be either extremely well adjusted or just a tad out to lunch. Here's typically sedate and reserved coverage of the sentencing from the New York Post:

Curtains for Tycho's Thief Exec as he gets 25 Years

By Laura Italiano
September 20, 2005

The $6,000 shower curtain has finally fallen on Tyco marauder Dennis Kozlowski. The spend-a-holic former CEO — as infamous for his bizarrely pricey home furnishings as for his $600 million looting of his company — is heading up the river without a yacht for a grueling state prison stint of 8 1/3 to 25 years.

"He has committed theft and securities fraud on an unprecedented, staggering scale, exceeding anything ever prosecuted in this state," Assistant District Attorney Owen Heimer said during a sentencing hearing yesterday in Manhattan Supreme Court. "It was a shocking spree of self-indulgence," Heimer said.

But the 58-year-old Kozlowski — who showed so much gall at the helm of Tyco he kept two ex-mistresses on his payroll and even charged the company for his "yacht stylist" and his $80,000-a-year housemaid — remained dry-eyed as he was handcuffed by court officers and led out by the arm.

Just three years ago, the ruddy robber baron enjoyed a Colorado ranch, a Boca mansion, and a Nantucket beach home — multimillion-dollar residences financed through larcenous bonuses, shady employee loans and fraudulently inflated stock-sale windfalls.

Now, Kozlowski will spend the next 10 days in a 9-by-7 cell in lower Manhattan's Tombs, before being moved to Rikers Island, and, ultimately, to a yet-to-be-determined upstate prison. His dinner last night was a hamburger, mashed potatoes with gravy, and four ounces of chocolate pudding, city correction spokesman Tom Antenen said.

It will be 2013 before Kozlowski is eligible for parole. But he may be eligible for work release in 2011. Sentenced to the same time alongside Kozlowski was his former chief financial officer, Mark Swartz, derided by prosecutors as the "architect" of the pair's grand larcenies. Between them, the two must pay Tyco back $134,351,397 in restitution, with Kozlowski on the hook for $97 million of that money.

Kozlowski was additionally slammed with $70 million in fines. That brings his total Criminal Court financial hit to $167 million — although civil litigation by the company and its shareholders could empty his pockets still further...

The full article, with plenty more bon mots and snark appears here. Meanwhile the SEC is pondering further action on the Tyco front.

...Assistant District Attorney Owen Heimer, who was speaking at the sentencing of former Tyco top executives L. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark H. Swartz, said the fraud may have resulted in the inflation of the Bermuda conglomerate's results by $1 billion.

...A prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's office said Monday that the enforcement staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission has recommended the agency begin an accounting fraud investigation of Tyco International Ltd. (TYC).

And we shall see what transpires.

-- MDT

Labels: Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco