Tyco employee Beth Pacitti
Background: Kozlowski’s free-spending ways have made him the poster boy for the extravagant corporate excesses of the late 1990s.
His well-documented lifestyle includes the purchase of high-end homes on Nantucket, New York’s Park Avenue and in Boca Raton, Fla., furnished with paintings by Monet and Renoir, a $6,000 shower curtain and a $15,000 umbrella stand provided by island designer Wendy Valliere, who according to court documents billed him more than $7.5 million for her services.
His pride and joy is the former America’s Cup J-boat Endeavor, a 130-foot sailing vessel often seen in the summer tied up at a private dock on North Wharf. Prosecutors are expected to introduce into evidence a videotape of the party he threw for his second wife Karen’s 40th birthday in Sardinia, a $2.1 million bash on which he allegedly spent $1 million of Tyco’s money. A number of Nantucket residents attended that party which featured entertainment by Jimmy Buffett (cost of US$250,000 ($436,000)) and island band ECliff and the Swingdogs, actors dressed as Roman gladiators and a life-size vodka-dispensing ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s David, and a life-sized chocolate cake of a woman....the Hotel Cala di Volpe in Sardinia golf course was turned into the themed extravaganza with chariots and gladiators greeting guests in the reception area, as well as male models dressed in togas and Speedo bathing suits. Following his indictment, Kozlowski’s assets were frozen. He was allowed to hold on to the Endeavor and pay its crew and maintenance expenses, on the condition the vessel be chartered as frequently as possible.
He and his former finance chief Mark Swartz are accused of looting the company of US$600 million ($1 billion). Both face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.