The former chairman of Tyco, Dennis Kozlowski, was convicted six-years ago pretty much for being a high spending CEO in the Enron era.
Yet, Tyco is and was far from an Enron scam. Kozlowski built Tyco into into the very successful company that it is today. Tyco shareholders can't complain about the performance of Tyco stock during Kozlowski's tenure at the firm. The stock quintipled in price during that period. His supposed crime? stealing his bonuses. Yet, his bonuses were all disclosed in SEC filings. Got that? Kozlowski was convicted of stealing his disclosed bonuses! It is quite mind boggling that this man is in jail.
Kozlowski has been serving 8 to 25 years. It is high-time some of the shareholders, who made a bundle during Kozlowski's watch, step up and make some noise, so that he at least gets out on work release. It appears that it is entirely political that he is not being released. He is the anti-Goldman Sachs. Kozlowski has no political connections, his company was never bailed out by the Fed. And yet, he is in the slammer, while Lloyd Blankfein sits fat and happy atop Goldman Sachs only because Blankefein's firm was bailed out by the Fed.
Kozlowski is now suing to get into a work- release program that it appears he meets all the criteria for. Three temporary-release committee tribunals unanimously approved his applications. Yet, he has been denied entry into the program by the Mid-State Correctional Facility superintendent, Joseph Costello, who appears does not to have the balls to do what he has to know is correct thing to do and let Kozlowski out on work release. Does Costello fear small-time political blowback for doing the right thing?
Liz Claman at FOX News does an impressive job of explaining the Kozlowski situation, below.
What a travesty. Murderers get less than that.
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