The bigger they are........

Business and ethics classes have a new chapter to add to the curriculum thanks to corporate CEO's that allow power and greed to consume them.

The most recent example......Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of Tyco, owner of ADT, the world's largest security contractor (I love irony). Mr. Koslowski was convicted for stealing (estimated around $600m) from he stockholders and investors. Why did he need a $2,000 shower curtain? Why did he need to pay Jimmy Buffett a $1m to sing for his wife's birthday?

Dennis will have (8-25) year's to ponder his stupidity at a NY state prison not the comfy minimum security "Club Fed". The state prisons do not have the facilities..... Former prosecutor David Gourevitch, however, said there were no facilities in the state system comparable to federal minimum-security prisons such as the one where entrepreneur Martha Stewart spent her five-month sentence.

"In the federal system, outside of maximum-security places, generally people are physically safe. I don't think anybody would say that about New York state prison," Gourevitch said. "And from a state perspective, this is one of the longest sentences in a corporate fraud case that I can recall."

Foglia said that in most cases, defendants sentenced to more than six years are sent to maximum-security prisons. She said it would be several weeks before the state decides where to send Kozlowski and Swartz. In the meantime, they will stay at a holding facility known as the Tombs in Lower Manhattan and then be sent to Rikers Island, the temporary jail for New York City inmates before they are sent to state prisons.

In June, a jury found former Tyco chief executive Kozlowski, 58, and former chief financial officer Swartz, 45, guilty of criminal counts of grand larceny, conspiracy, securities fraud and eight of nine counts of falsifying business records.

Obus imposed the same prison sentence on both men. He ordered Kozlowski to pay a $70 million fine and Swartz to pay a $35 million fine. He ordered both men to repay Tyco a combined $134.4 million in restitution of illegal bonuses and other illicit payments.