The second corruption trial of former Tyco International Ltd. executives Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz will tentatively begin Jan. 18, or nine months after mistrial was declared in the first case against them, a judge ruled on Monday.
Kozlowski and Swartz, the company's former chief executive and chief finance officer, respectively, face charges of looting Tyco of $600 million in one of the biggest corporate corruption cases in U.S. history.
Their first trial, which lasted six months, ended in a mistrial when a judge stopped jury deliberations after one panelist received a suspicious letter.
State Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus, who presided over the first trial, set the date for the second trial during a hearing on Monday.
Kozlowski and Swartz built Tyco into one of the world's largest conglomerates by buying hundreds of companies, and the first case against them was considered a pivotal prosecution in the wake of other U.S. corporate scandals, such as those at Enron and WorldCom.
Prosecutors claimed Kozlowski and Swartz used Tyco as their piggy bank, enjoying unauthorized bonuses, forgiven loans and other payments, but defense attorneys said all the money was paid with company approval.
The case, thought to cost the state as much as $6 million and the defendants just as much, captured public attention when testimony revealed Kozlowski's lavish spending.
