L. Dennis Kozlowski, who was sentenced in 2005 to 25 years in jail for grand larceny, securities fraud and other crimes, for stealing $137 million in unauthorized bonuses from Tyco, abusing company loan programs and selling $410 million in inflated stock, remains unrepentant.

Hardly surprising. Last year in an interview with 60 Minutes's Morley Safer, and detailed here in The Wall Street Journal's law blog, Kozlowski blamed his plight on juror envy. "I was a guy sitting in a courtroom who made $100 million a year. And I think a juror sitting there just would have to say, 'All that money, he must a done somethin' wrong.' I think it's as you know, it's as simple as that."

So in Kozlowski's distorted view of reality, he wasn't guilty of stealing money. He was just a victim of envy.

Not surprisingly, he is still full of form. His latest interview shows that he hasn't changed at all.



In this Corporate Board Member magazine interview. (registration required) Totally unrepentant. At no point in the interview, does he acknowledge that he might have done something wrong.

"I'm serving a worse sentence than many murderers, rapists, and child molesters. Another thing, I was convicted of stealing my bonus. Well, I never actually got it. It's still in Tyco as deferred compensation I never collected. It's like finding somebody guilty of bank robbery when the money is still in the bank.

And if he had to do it all over again, what would he do differently? "The world changed soon after we'd done our CIT deal. (Tyco paid $9 billion in stock for the finance outfit in 2001.) Enron filed for Chapter 11, and S&P, Moody's, and the other ratings agencies took a harder look at our finance company and downgraded us. Once that happened, money got more expensive. For us it was like the cost of raw materials had gone up, because our product was money. I wish we hadn't done CIT at all. The other thing I'd do differently is to go ahead and break Tyco into three or four companies. We announced we'd do this in January of 2002 but then changed our minds a couple of months later. That cost me credibility. We should have stuck to what we said the first time."

So there you have it. No regrets about dishonest behavior.

Still, it takes a crook to recognize another one. Which is why he identified subprime as the next big scandal. "The subprime mortgage mess looks like it will produce a replay of the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s. There'll be lawsuits and questions of what the CEO knew and when. Prosecutors will investigate and, if they do a good job, will become higher-paid defense attorneys. Defense attorneys will continue to have big paydays."