Ex-CEO Used Tyco Funds for Personal Expenses

Oct. 11 -- In an era of unsurpassed corporate greed, where executives have enjoyed palatial mansions, private jets and $100 million salaries, it may be the $6,000 shower curtain that is remembered best.

Dennis Kozlowski, the former CEO of Tyco International Ltd. who is facing charges of enterprise corruption and grand larceny, paid a whopping $6,000 for his shower curtain — $6,000 of his company's money.

David Boies, one of the country's best-known lawyers (he represented then-Vice President Al Gore in the Florida presidential vote recount of 2000), discovered the shower curtain after being hired by the Tyco board to investigate the company's own top officers on April 30, 2002.

The existence of the tasseled, gold and burgundy floral shower curtain was documented deep within Tyco company records.

"This was one of the most highly compensated executives in the world," said Boies. "If he wanted a $6,000 shower curtain, he could have bought it himself."

Not to mention a few other decorating touches for Kozlowski and his wife — including a $15,000 umbrella stand, a $6,300 sewing basket end table, a $17,000 toiletries case, a $2,900 wastepaper basket, 17th-century antiques and more than $500,000 in draperies, according to Boies.

Some $25 million in loans to Kozlowski from Tyco simply disappeared, Boies said. "They just made a journal entry and with a stroke of the pen, reduced Kozlowski's liability by $25 million.

"In effect, he borrowed the money and he didn't have to pay it back," said Boies.

Trying to Hide Spent Money

Kozlowski has pleaded not guilty to enterprise corruption and grand larceny.

"Lots of people buy things that don't seem to me to make a lot of sense," said Boies. "But here, what you had was somebody spending the company's money, the shareholders' money, and that was what was wrong."

And according to Boies, they were trying to hide it all, along with company money spent on a 40th birthday party for Kozlowski's wife, Karen, at a five-star resort on the Italian island of Sardinia.