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Wild birthday bash caught on tape
Jurors in the fraud trial of Tyco ex-chairman watch an edited videotape of the $2.1 million party, complete with Jimmy Buffett, gladiators and a breast-shaped cake.
By MSN Money staff and wire reports
Pamela Anderson learned that it's a bad idea to put certain events on videotape. Now, Dennis Kozlowski is learning the same lesson.
Jurors in the corruption trial the former Tyco (TYC, news, msgs) chairman on Tuesday watched PG-rated scenes of debauchery as prosecutors tried to sway them with video of his wife's birthday party on a Mediterranean island.
New York prosecutors showed about 20 minutes of video footage from the 2001 party that cost $2.1 million -- about half paid by Tyco -- and featured singer Jimmy Buffett, gladiators, chariots and an ice sculpture of Michelangelo's David spewing vodka from his penis.
PG-rated highlights
The footage, edited from four hours of film, was a welcome departure for jurors who have sat through three weeks of often tedious testimony. One juror on Monday nodded off in the courtroom.
But Judge Michael Obus ruled that jurors wouldn't see footage of the ice sculpture or a birthday cake in the shape of a woman's breasts with sparklers mounted on top.
Even Wall Street was waiting on the tape, which CNBC was showing throughout the day. "We want to see the tape," Mark Boutote, a Direct Brokerage managing director, said on CNBC from the New York Stock Exchange floor.
'Basically clueless'
Defense lawyers for Kozlowski, accused of looting Tyco of $600 million with former Tyco finance chief Mark Swartz, argued that the tape would be prejudicial to Kozlowski. "There's no proof that Mr. Kozlowski knew ahead of time what this party was going to be like," said Austin Campriello, a defense attorney for the former Tyco CEO.
He added that Kozlowski "basically was clueless."
Kozlowski feted his second wife, Karen Mayo, with a 40th birthday party at Hotel Cala di Volpe, where 75 guests gathered for a week of fun and leisure on Sardinia, off the Italian coast. His lawyers say he paid about half the bill.
Barbara Jacques, a former Tyco events coordinator enlisted to help plan the event, testified that the singer Buffett and his band were flown to the Mediterranean island at a cost of $250,000. As a party favor, all of the guests received a DVD to memorialize the trip.
While Judge Obus ruled against showing the party's most salacious scenes, he agreed that jurors should be allowed to see how Tyco's money was used, or misused, as prosecutors claim.
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