Kozlowski Is Found Guilty

"I would have anticipated the evidence would have been so damning and clearly laid out that the jurors would have been compelled to a rush to judgment," Geffner says. "But getting 12 people to agree ... is more difficult than you would expect."

The Kozlowski case grabbed headlines in 2002 when the CEO stepped down from Tyco amid allegations he dodged taxes on artworks by shipping the paintings to an out-of-state address.

The government later alleged that Kozlowski and Swartz enjoyed low-interest and no-interest loans from Tyco that were never authorized by the company or disclosed to shareholders. Kozlowski alone reportedly received some $135 million in interest-free or flat-out forgiven loans and other payments over five years, including a $19 million gift to help him buy a Florida estate.

After Kozlowski's 2002 departure from Tyco, the company published an audit listing a $445 pincushion, a $6,000 shower curtain and a $15,000 dog umbrella stand among the "appointments and furnishings lacking any legitimate business justification" that Kozlowski used to decorate his company-financed New York apartment.

Tyco said in September 2002 that Kozlowski misused an interest-free corporate relocation loan account to the tune of $62 million, while Swartz took $31 million from that account. Tyco said at the time that Kozlowski also caused Tyco to pay a special, unapproved bonus to 51 employees who had relocation loans with the company.

"This pattern of improper and illegal activity occurred for at least five years prior to June 3, 2002," when Kozlowski resigned after he was indicted on tax-evasion charges, Tyco said later that year. "The amount of money improperly diverted by Tyco's former senior executives from the Company to themselves is very small in comparison with Tyco's total revenues and profits, but it is very large by any other relevant comparison."

Just last month, Tyco set a $50 million reserve for settling the Securities and Exchange Commission's ongoing probe of the company's business and accounting practices dating back to previous management. Tyco said at the time it was in active talks with the SEC's enforcement division about settling that inquiry, which reportedly stemmed at least in part from concern on how the company was accounting for its many acquisitions under the Kozlowski regime.