Prosecutor Opposes Trial Delay for Former Tyco Executives

Former Tyco International Ltd. Chief Executive L. Dennis Kozlowski and former Chief Financial Officer Mark Swartz are spending $500,000 a month on living expenses, a New York prosecutor told a judge in opposing Swartz’s bid to delay their trial on fraud charges.

Swartz and Kozlowski, accused of looting $600 million from Tyco, want their trial, scheduled for Sept. 29 in Manhattan, put off until November.

“Our trial team cannot be asked to wait at defendants’ pleasure, while the defendants are running up bills of $500,000 a month,” Assistant Dist. Atty. John Moscow said in court papers filed Monday. “We are entitled to a trial.”

Prosecutors have frozen $600 million in assets of Swartz and Kozlowski, contending they are the proceeds of fraud.

Most of the $500,000 the two men are spending each month is for upkeep of their homes.

Kozlowski owns at least nine properties and Swartz owns homes in several states, including a 1,500-acre estate in Virginia. Their expenditures must be approved by another judge, New York State Supreme Court Justice Martin Shulman, after review by the district attorney’s office.

Kozlowski and Swartz were indicted in September 2002 on multiple charges of enterprise corruption, grand larceny, conspiracy, falsifying business records and violating state securities laws, as part of a scheme to steal $170 million from Tyco and obtain $430 million through stock fraud.

They face up to 30 years in prison if they are convicted.