L. Dennis Kozlowski was once a high-flying chief executive, perched atop Tyco International.
Now, after serving prison time for fraud, he is working at a software company as a clerk.
Mr. Kozlowski, who was granted parole this week, has been working since early 2012 at a company that provides software to help veterans and ex-offenders find jobs, he said in the parole hearing on Tuesday, according to a transcript reviewed by DealBook.
“People take courses, and it helps them in the interview process and also helps them initially in their jobs,” said Mr. Kozlowski, who is in a work-release program.
“I’m a clerk there,” he said, but did not identify the company. “Work-release rules are somewhat limited as to what you can do, but I do anything from preparing proposals to proofreading to copying. Whatever is necessary in the course of a business day.”
A onetime multimillionaire, Mr. Kozlowski was found guilty in 2005 of grand larceny, conspiracy and fraud, earning a prison sentence of 8-1/3 to 25 years. He spent nearly seven years at a prison facility in upstate New York before moving in January 2012 to the Lincoln Correctional Facility, a minimum-security prison on the north edge of Manhattan’s Central Park.
He began working at the software company in February 2012, he said in Tuesday’s hearing. In July this year, his status was upgraded to “day reporting,” requiring him to report briefly to the minimum-security prison facility twice a week. He has been sleeping at home since then.
His sentence was reduced by about one year and four months because of good behavior. After Tuesday’s hearing, Mr. Kozlowski is scheduled to be formally released as soon as Jan. 17.
He expressed contrition during the hearing, echoing a previous and unsuccessful effort to gain parole in April 2012. In the hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Kozlowski said he felt “horrible.”
“Not a moment goes by, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my family, my friends, everybody that was ever involved,” he said on Tuesday, according to the transcript. “I was blessed. I was doing extremely well. I can’t say how sorry I am and how deeply I regret my actions many years ago.”
Though he was offered a plea bargain during his trial, he turned it down, Mr. Kozlowski said. Now, though, he admits that he and a former colleague stole $150 million from the company through unauthorized bonuses.
He did so by putting the money in a deferred-income account, Mr. Kozlowski said. “While I was stealing the money, I was not taking it out of the company,” he said.
“At that time, I unfortunately rationalized that I was not involved,” he said. “Subsequently, as I thought about it and sat in jail for a long time, I knew I was involved and I rationalized, you know, that I wasn’t, but I was involved with the crime. I stole money from Tyco, and I’m completely responsible for it.”
“I fell into what I can best describe as a C.E.O. bubble, and I rationalized that I was more valuable than I was,” Mr. Kozlowski said. “It was wrong, and I just — it was greed, pure and simple.”