Ex-Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski now advising nonprofit

The new home of felon and ex-Tyco International Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Dennis Kozlowski, while not furnished with the $6,000 shower curtain and paintings by Monet and Renoir that decorated his previous Manhattan abode, offers a stunning view of Central Park and the New York skyline. Convicted in 2005 of looting his company, Kozlowski was transferred from an upstate prison to a minimum-security facility on Manhattan's 110th Street near Fifth Avenue, on the north border of the park. He leaves every weekday morning to participate in a work-release program, said Peter Cutler, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. As he is still serving a prison sentence of 8 1/3 to 25 years, Kozlowski must return every work night to his new home, known as the Lincoln Correctional Facility. Cutler said Kozlowski may spend Saturday nights outside the jail. While Cutler declined to disclose the ex-CEO's new job, Kozlowski's lawyer said his client is working as a financial consultant for a non-profit organization that helps ex-convicts. “He's very happy to be out doing something that he has sort of dedicated himself to,” attorney Michael Shapiro said. In his trial, prosecutors told jurors the ex-CEO's $30 million Fifth Avenue apartment, paid for with Tyco funds, featured the now-infamous shower curtain and a $15,000 umbrella stand. They also detailed his crimes, many of which were committed while working from Tyco's offices on Manhattan's West 57th Street, a few miles south of Kozlowski's new address. Tyco, based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, is the world's biggest maker of security systems. Kozlowski, along with former Chief Financial Officer Mark Swartz, were convicted in June 2005 of securities fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records. Unauthorized Compensation The jury, in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, found they stole about $137 million from Tyco in unauthorized compensation and made $410 million from the sale of inflated stock. An earlier trial resulted in a mistrial after a juror reported receiving threats. Kozlowski, 65, has his first parole hearing next month and could be released as soon as Aug. 25, Cutler said. He was transferred to Lincoln from medium-security Mid- State Correctional Facility, in Marcy, in January and started in the work-release program last month, Cutler said. Lincoln is located in an eight-story building that opened in 1914 as a branch of the Young Women's Hebrew Association, according to a corrections department profile of the facility. The state took the property over and opened it as a work- and education-release prison in 1976. --Bloomberg News--