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Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski CBS 60 Minutes Prison Interview - Noise Removed — Transcript

by Robert Thetford · 2,134 words · 312 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00a year ago so the air was thick with
0:03tales of corporate scandal lost pension
0:06funds big-time theft and even bigger
0:08time prison sentences for the Enron game
0:10then there was dennis Kozlowski CEO of
0:13Tyco who was found guilty of in effect
0:16using Tycho's immense financial
0:18resources or what the prosecution
0:20described as his own personal piggy bed
0:23you might remember the $6,000 shower
0:26trip and stealing over a hundred million
0:28dollars from the company what we
0:31wondered how the man who could whistle
0:32up a corporate jet on a whim or throw a
0:35two million dollar birthday party was
0:37doing in his reduced circumstances
0:39what's it like to go from king of the
0:41world to prisoner number Oh 5 a 4 8 - Oh
0:46serving 8 to 25 years behind bars
0:49once again dennis Kozlowski we caught up
0:55with dennis Kozlowski at Mid State
0:57Correctional Facility in upstate New
0:59York guests include murderers drug
1:03dealers and pedophiles and the odd
1:06multi-millionaire in my wildest
1:09imagination but I would project myself
1:12into my late fifties and early sixties
1:13where I would be or what I would be
1:15doing if I met and make a list of a
1:17hundred different places or a hundred
1:18different things here we'd never make
1:20that list he now leads $1 a day
1:23mopping floors and slinging hash to his
1:25fellow inmates in January
1:28Kozlowski spent a week in hospital with
1:31a heart ailment and got to thinking
1:33you've not talked publicly up till now
1:36why did you decide to do it when I was
1:38in the hospital in January outside the
1:41emergency room feeling really
1:42uncomfortable frightened and that's what
1:44I really made the firm decision that I
1:46wanted to go through and talk to you
1:48about this time you became aware of your
1:50own mortality very myself and you didn't
1:53want to leave this world without at
1:55least an opportunity to talk about my
1:58side of the story to the extent that I
2:00can talk about it he agreed to speak
2:02with one stipulation that we would not
2:04include anyone else in this story
2:06because of an appeal he'll not discuss
2:09the details of his case but he will say
2:12had
2:13in a judicial system I think all that
2:14works but in this case the jury got it
2:16wrong that jury convicted him of 22
2:19counts of grand larceny conspiracy and
2:22securities fraud his trials occurred in
2:25the wake of a white-collar crime wave
2:28Enron Worldcom and Martha Stewart the
2:33news hound smells blood accused of
2:35looting his company of hundreds of
2:37millions of dollars and living the life
2:39of a Pasha as stockholders expense he
2:42was the living breathing version of Wall
2:45Street's Gordon Gekko Green for lack of
2:49a better word his good up to a point was
2:54puzzling as why does a man who struggled
2:57so hard so effectively to make it become
3:01so careless or stupid or arrogant born
3:05in a tenement on the wrong side of the
3:07tracks in Newark New Jersey because less
3:10he worked his way through school and
3:12played guitar in a band I worked in a
3:14pharmacy I worked in a car wash you know
3:17I had two or three jobs going at any
3:18given time where you came from there
3:21weren't that many options
3:22no no growing up in North New Jersey at
3:24the time you know you never thought of
3:26yourself growing up I'm a CEO he started
3:28the Tyco then a small New Hampshire
3:30manufacturing company as it accounted
3:33making $28,000 a year and worked his way
3:37up to CEO he became known as dealer de
3:41Dennis constantly acquiring new
3:43companies and building Tyco from a forty
3:46million dollar company into a forty
3:49billion dollar conglomerate would like
3:51to become all things equal a hundred
3:53billion dollar company Wall Street could
3:55not get enough of the young aggressive
3:57CEO he also began making staggering
4:01amounts of money among the top earning
4:03CEOs in the country we had a
4:05pay-for-performance culture a typo so
4:08most of the money I earned was in the
4:09appreciation of Tyco start one year you
4:12made a hundred and seventy million
4:13dollars richer I made over a million
4:16fare well
4:21what's it like to earn that kind of
4:23money it's a way of keeping score I
4:25guess keeping score meant keeping up
4:27with the Masters of the Universe thirty
4:30million dollars to build a mansion in
4:32Boca Raton acquiring homes in Nantucket
4:35and Colorado and just loose change
4:39sixteen million dollars for endeavour of
4:42vintage yard wealth meant one thing
4:45social acceptance another he and his
4:48second wife Karen Mayo spent millions on
4:51paintings he joined the board of the
4:53Whitney Museum for a pied-a-terre in New
4:56York he had taiko by a 19 million dollar
4:59apartment and decorated it with 11
5:02million dollars worth of stuff the poor
5:05kid from Newark was stepping out on
5:08Fifth Avenue would dennis Kozlowski a
5:11few years ago even contemplated going to
5:14Europe to my old master paintings
5:16no absolutely not you know we came with
5:18earning the amount of money I was
5:19earning at the time was it your idea or
5:21were to join the board so I was that my
5:25idea at all I was about any traitor the
5:27board and I never made a board meeting
5:29so you were invited because I'd like
5:31having really rich guys on the board I
5:34assumed it wasn't for my knowledge of
5:36art but it was art that would lead to
5:39his undoing the Manhattan district
5:42attorney's office was investigating
5:43galleries that were helping customers
5:46avoid sales taxes because Lasky had
5:48purchased thirteen million dollars worth
5:50of paintings including a Renoir and
5:52money for the taiko apartment but
5:56prosecutors said he had some of them
5:57shipped to Tycho's offices in New
6:00Hampshire a state without sales tax they
6:02were then trucked back to New York
6:04in 2002 the Manhattan district
6:07attorney's office indicted Kozlowski for
6:10evading over a million dollars in sales
6:13tax and he resigned as CEO but that was
6:17only the beginning
6:18the Tyco board investigated it ceo's
6:21behavior and made public a report that
6:24was devastated because Lasky's excesses
6:27were revealed in excruciating detail
6:30decorations for the New York apartment
6:32became classic tabloid headlines mocking
6:36the CEOs taste and his greed the $15,000
6:41doggie umbrella stand and the ultimate
6:45symbol of his downfall that $6,000
6:48shower curtain the coverage was merely
6:52punishing but I was horrible as
6:54overblown as the coverage may have been
6:56you signed off on those I signed off on
6:59a decorator to decorate know the type of
7:02apartment and beyond that that was my
7:05involvement I the first time I heard
7:07about that record is the first time was
7:09after I was out of the company and I
7:11read about it in a newspaper tonight
7:13that was calling around asking where is
7:15the shower curtain but to this day I
7:17wouldn't know what if they fell I mean
7:18so then there was the 40th birthday
7:23party for Kozlowski's wife in Sardinia
7:29it was a four-day festival of flesh
7:39Jimmy Buffett was flown in for the music
7:43and guests were treated to a special
7:46cake an anatomically correct woman with
7:49exploding breasts the cost was over two
7:54million dollars since Kozlowski claimed
7:57it was in part a work retreat
7:59Tyko puddin half the bill was an
8:03embarrassing for you though what when
8:04they laid that tape how was this kind of
8:06Roman orgy going I was taken aback by it
8:12but I smelled and worked my way through
8:13it one of the nice and as fast as I
8:16could
8:16Donald Trump called you behavior
8:19techie thank you thank you for those
8:27excesses may have been tacky but tacky
8:30doesn't send you to jail
8:31far more serious was the allegation that
8:34Kozlowski literally stole money from
8:36Tyco he and his second-in-command mark
8:39Schwartz were charged with stealing 170
8:42million dollars and pocketing an
8:44additional 430 million through the sale
8:47of company stock while lying about
8:50Tycho's financial condition the
8:53prosecution accused Kozlowski of
8:55granting himself unauthorized bonuses
8:57and running hundreds of millions of
8:59dollars worth of personal expenses
9:01through interest-free Tyco loan programs
9:04no expense was too great or too small to
9:09run through Tyco
9:10none of this claims the prosecution was
9:13authorized by the Tyco board and the
9:16jury agreed guilty but he's still
9:19fighting I am absolutely not guilty of
9:22the charges that record upon me there
9:23was no criminal intent here nothing was
9:25hidden there were no shredded documents
9:28nobody was told not to say anything all
9:31the information the prosecutors got was
9:33directly off the books the records of
9:34the company in the trial because lossky
9:37took the stand and testified that
9:39everything he did was authorized he'd
9:42already repaid many of the loans and
9:44claimed he was simply an overworked
9:47executive who left the details for
9:49underlings to him I was pushing the
9:52company and growing the company and
9:54pushing all aspects of it to continue to
9:56I just don't think we put enough
9:59infrastructure in place to support some
10:02of that growth yeah but some of the some
10:04of the lines got blurred some of the
10:07lives between what was your money what
10:10was Tycho's money became very fuzzy I
10:13think I did everything accordingly to
10:16the way the programs were outlined and
10:18the way it was done by my predecessors
10:20was their situation where the rules got
10:24lost mother as I said marine appeal on
10:27this and there's also civil litigation
10:28so at this point in time I think we're
10:31crossing the line here
10:32the Tyco board had given Kozlowski
10:34virtual card gloss and the one person
10:37Kozlowski said could clear it all up the
10:40head of compensation was dead
10:42whatever Kozlowski did it was clear that
10:45the Tyco board was not exactly
10:47meticulous in carrying out its oversight
10:50even so cause less he believes he was a
10:53dead duck
10:54from the start I was a guy sitting in
10:58court when we made a hundred million
10:59dollars a year
11:00and I think a juror sitting there just
11:02would have to say all that money he must
11:04have done something wrong
11:05right I think it's as soon it's as
11:07simple as that Kozlowski says he was
11:10done in by bad timing the Enron and
11:13world catastrophes he feels that most
11:16people believe that's what happened to
11:18Tyco that employees were left high and
11:20dry but Tyco remains a thriving 60
11:24billion dollar company the company went
11:26on after I left there the company is a
11:28life thing it's doing well does it make
11:31you angry to be loved in with Ken Lay
11:36that just frustrated me to no end these
11:38are companies that had financial and
11:40accounting schemes that had major scams
11:41that was Tyco you know this was a this
11:44is a major paid dispute but the jury
11:46didn't see it that way he was sentenced
11:49to 8 to 25 years in order to pay
11:52restitution and fines of almost 200
11:55million dollars it sound clear and he'll
11:58have any money left when he is released
12:00in the meantime he spends much of his
12:03time in prison focused on his appeal you
12:06can receive visitors on the weekends but
12:09he says
12:10he has few friends left in the final
12:13analysis most of the people were close
12:16to you because of the power and you well
12:19that's correct
12:20and they wanted to share in that that
12:22was probably 90% of the people in my
12:24life and they didn't give a damn about
12:25this cause lastly the man that's a
12:27that's a hard thing to reconcile
12:30yourself to but it did happen and it was
12:32not just his friends who left you how
12:36about time oh we're divorcing and you
12:40know that's we're moving on so but was
12:44his marriage like so many things in his
12:46life all about money where we create a
12:50middle of a divorce and agreement I'm
12:52not going to say anything about that you
12:54know at this time he says he tries to
12:56stay positive he's 60 years old you know
12:59and the harsh reality of his predicament
13:02is inescapable when you're sleeping in
13:05jail you wake up all the time because
13:07there's a light on all night so you kind
13:10of wake up every hour wishing and
13:11praying and hope it was just a dream
13:13no but it's not it's reality and my god
13:15oftentimes guys get religion inside that
13:20happened with you there's a spiritual
13:21side that so much you know I think about
13:24and reflect on from time to time but
13:27that's personal and private you know
13:29behind me yeah and you've got the time
13:31to do it I have plenty of time yes sir I
13:33have

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