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Former Worldcom Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers was handed a 25-year prison term for directing the biggest accounting fraud in corporate history, leaving thousands of investors empty-handed. Ebbers, who built a small Mississippi-based long distance company into a telecommunications powerhouse, was found guilty on March 15 on all charges — one count of conspiracy, one count of securities fraud and seven counts of false regulatory filings. But he could also be a charming and folksy CEO, who preferred cowboy boots to suits, opened shareholder meetings with a prayer, ate lunch in the cafeteria and ran a company that had become a...

White-collar crooks deserve tough treatment. But 24 years for Dynegy's Jamie Olis? Politics has turned financial fraud into a worse crime than running drugs or killing someone. Former Tyco chief executive Dennis Kozlowski is a lucky guy. Not because a stubborn juror landed him a mistrial. He's lucky because even if New York prosecutors retry him, as they've vowed to do, the flamboyant former exec is looking at 15 to 30 years, no more. Were Kozlowski in federal court instead, he could easily be facing what amounts to a life sentence--with no chance of parole--under rigid new sentencing guidelines. While...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The corruption case of two former Tyco International Ltd. executives veered closer to a mistrial on Friday as jurors remained in turmoil, prompting the judge to send them home early to calm down. New York State Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus told the jurors to return on Monday after they sent him a note saying they did not believe they could keep deliberating in good faith. "Based upon further intense discussion today, we firmly believe that this jury's ability to communicate and deliberate with an open mind is irreparably compromised," the jury said in the note...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Prosecutors moved a step closer to questioning an interior designer who did extensive work for L. Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco International Ltd.'s (TYC) former chairman and chief executive. The government had been seeking the whereabouts of Wendy Valliere, owner of Seldom Scene Interiors, to testify in the trial of Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, Tyco's former chief financial officer, in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Late Wednesday, her attorney, James Batson, agreed to reveal the phone number and location where he has been contacting her to prosecutors in response to an order by Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus. Kozlowski...

<p>During the Clinton impeachment year, one got used to viewing television with a trigger finger on the remote, lest the children overhear with too much precision what all the fuss was about. My children are older now, but I still find myself in great sympathy with those home-schooling religious types who simply abjure television and radio altogether; walling off their homes and their lives from the putrescence that swirls outside. As it is, we man the cultural battlements with an ever-increasing sense of futility. When the reporter following every hiccup of the Scott Peterson trial appears on screen, we may not get to the remote fast enough to prevent the children from hearing a handsome, normal-seeming man may have murdered and hacked up his wife and baby son. A millionaire who admitted he killed and chopped up his neighbor was recently acquitted. "What does 'dismembered' mean, Mom?" I don't want them to know. Change the channel, quick. A few minutes later, they are likely to learn basketball superstar Kobe Bryant stands accused of rape and that, at best, he was catting around. Is Mr. Bryant an exception among professional athletes? Hardly. The list of criminal convictions is long. The list of tasteless and boorish behavior is even longer. A recent test revealed something like 7 percent of professional baseball players tested positive for steroids. "Say it ain't so, Joe," sounds so quaint now. Where shall we search for men and women who do not disgrace themselves? To the clergy? The Catholic Church scandal is so broad and deep it defies belief. So many children, for so many years. And the hierarchy dodged and covered up and lied. Change the channel, quick. Careful, careful. Do we want the young to know so many American businessmen cheated, lied and despoiled their companies? Do we want them to see the lavish, Roman-orgyish party Dennis Kozlowski threw for his wife on a Mediterranean island to the tune of $2 million? It would have been disgusting even if it had been honestly paid for. As it is, it appears Mr. Kozlowski stole as much as $600 million from Tyco. How about politics? Some political scandals are entirely spurious -- merely partisan attempts to gain advantage. But then ... . What shall we say to the kids about Arnold Schwarzenegger? Plenty of comely skeletons in that closet. Though at least he had the decency to apologize. And what of Al Sharpton? The scandal there is that there is no scandal. Here is a man who rose to fame on the strength of a racially motivated smear of a group of perfectly innocent police officers. The good Reverend has never acknowledged wrongdoing nor apologized. As if that were not enough, he was the provocateur who incited a race riot in Harlem that led to the torching of a clothing store and the deaths of seven people. Again, no apology. And yet he is a respected member of the Democratic Party who has the audacity to run for president. Not only is he not denounced by his fellow candidates, they take turns buttering him up and suggesting coyly he would make a heck of a running mate. Change the channel. Don't let the kids look too closely at journalism. On the air, they'll find a debased search for the lowest common denominator. In print, they'll find plagiarism. Some plagiarists get lucrative book contracts (Jayson Blair). Others, like Stephen Glass, get generous book contracts and movies made about themselves. Popular music? Whom do you prefer: Eminem or Britney Spears? And now Michael Jackson does a moonwalk perp walk. There are rumors he used alcohol and drugs to numb at least one victim. But we don't understand, Mr. Jackson insists. There's nothing wrong with having little boys sleep in your bed. It's just an expression of his extraordinarily loving nature. Change the channel. But we can't change the channel, because this isn't just a television invention. This is our culture. This free-for-all, libertine, conscienceless Maypole dance is what we've created from once-strong roots of Puritan rectitude. A nation once lampooned for its innocence now wallows in smut of every kind. Were it not for the new counterculture -- the millions of families attempting to raise moral and idealistic kids despite the deluge of decadence -- I would be in doubt about our future.</p>

<p>October 8, 2003 -- x-Tyco International tycoon Dennis Kozlowski is a world-class thief who grabbed homes, yachts, art and jewels with two fists while keeping his shareholders in the dark about his pillaging, prosecutors charged yesterday at the opening of his embezzlement trial.</p>

Things started well for Salt Lake City burglar-alarm dealer Edward J. Salmon III when he affiliated himself in 1996 with ADT Security Services Inc. Then Tyco International Ltd. acquired ADT. That's when ADT started pressuring Salmon to target "the scummiest neighborhoods possible" to boost sales, the Wall Street Journal reported today. "We wanted them to go into neighborhoods where there were problems, where Mookie was standing on a corner selling rock," said Thomas Davis, an ADT manager in the late 1990s. "Tyco kept pushing. They wanted numbers. They didn't give a crap if the accounts fell off the books later."...

<p>PARTY HEARTY!.Dennis Kozlowski partied hearty at his $12 million Nantucket mansion over the July 4 holiday.</p> <p>Corporate disgrace hasn't cramped the high-rolling lifestyle of Tyco's ex-CEO, L. Dennis Kozlowski.</p> <p>While the shamed fat cat awaits a Manhattan trial for tax evasion - and Tyco's stock remains stuck in the Dumpster - he's been living it up on his $25 million antique yacht and enjoying the Atlantic views from his $12 million Nantucket mansion.</p>