Defence Request To Delay Tyco Retrial Denied

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

11 May 2004

New York State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus has denied a request from attorneys defending former Tyco chief executive, Dennis Kozlowski and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Swartz to delay the retrial of the two men in order to allow the furore over the collapse of their last trial to die down.

The two men stand accused of several counts of grand larceny and corruption over their handling of Bermuda-based Tyco's finances, and are alleged to have received more than $600 million in unauthorized compensation and stock sales.

An earlier trial collapsed following the naming of one of the jurors, and the subsequent receipt by the same jury member of a letter from a member of the public taking issue with her presumption that the two former executives were being used as scapegoats by the Tyco board.

Speaking in New York's Supreme Court last week, defence attorney on behalf of Mr Swartz, Charles Stillman, called for the retrial to be delayed in order to separate the proceedings from the parallel trial of Tyco's former general counsel, Mark Helnick, and to allow some of the negative publicity sparked by the recent trial collapse to die down.

"If I can borrow a phrase, we need some noise abatement, Your Honor," the Wall Street Journal quoted the lawyer as observing.

Justice Obus responded by announcing that "if it were only a matter of publicity", he would start the trial in the fall.

However, the WSJ reported that despite this rejection of the defence's plea, scheduling conflicts for attorneys involved in the case may necessitate that a retrial is delayed until Spring 2005.

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