Metro

Ex-Tyco CEO Kozlowski denied parole due to ‘concern for public safety’

Dennis Kozlowski — the Tyco marauder who infamously spent millions of dollars in looted corporate funds on such bizarrely profligate home furnishings as a $6,000 golden shower curtain– must stay in prison for now, according to state parole officials.

Kozlowski’s bid this week to be released from prison after 83 months was denied as not compatible with “the welfare of society at large,” according to the parole board.

The ruddy robber baron and co-defendant ex-CFO Mark Swartz had been sentenced back in 2005 to serve at least 8 1/3 years behind bars. Their pillaging of the giant, home security and electronics conglomerate resulted in a $76 billion loss for shareholders, prosecutors said at the time.

The pair gave themselves as much as $150 million in illegal bonuses, plus tens of millions of dollars in never-repaid loans. They also manipulated Tyco’s stock price by lying about the state of its finances — then cashed in their own stock in order to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars more.

Kozlowski has been housed since January at the Lincoln Correctional Facility at Central Park and W. 110 St. He is a clerk in the office of a company that makes computer software, his lawyer has said.

“Your instant offenses are the result of your theft of over one-hundred million dollars from Tyco, an international public corporation, in glaring violation of the trust placed in you as CEO by the board of directors and corporate shareholders,” parole officials wrote Kozlowski in a decision announced today.

“Your institutional programming indicates progress and achievement, which is noted to your credit,” the decision said.

“Your disciplinary record appears clean and is likewise noted. Your receipt of a merit certificate is acknowledged and considered by the panel. Required statutory factors have been considered, including your risk to the community rehabilitation efforts, and your needs for successful community re-entry,” the decision said.

“Your discretionary release, at their time, would thus not be compatible with the welfare of society at large, and would tend to deprecate the seriousness of the instant offense(s), and undermine respect for the law,” the decision said.

“Mr. Kozlowski is deeply disappointed by the decision of the parole board,” according to a statement released by the office of his lawyer, Alan Lewis. “Respectfully, he does not agree that his parole would violate public safety.”