Dennis Kozlowski: CEO Bonuses for TARP Recipients ‘Indefensible’

“Once one of America’s highest paid CEOs, the 64-year-old felon acknowledges he got ‘piggy’ when it came to his pay,” according to the Journal. “And he says he shares the outrage over corporate greed expressed by the Occupy Wall Street protesters, many of whom wonder why the recent financial crisis didn’t send as many executives to prison as the scandals of a decade ago. ‘I understand their frustration,’ Mr. Kozlowski said in an interview in a visitors’ room at the Mid-State Correctional Facility.”

In the interview, he discussed his post-prison plans, his meetings with GE. CEO Jeff Immelt about possibly combining their companies, and the missteps that led him to prison.

“He received a sentence of 8 1/3 years to 25 years, compared with 25 years for former WorldCom CEO Bernard J. Ebbers and 24 for former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling. In seeking the maximum sentence, Assistant District Attorney Owen Heimer called Mr. Kozlowski’s crimes ‘unprecedented’ and said he made Tyco a ‘symbol of kleptocratic management,’” according to the paper.