Legal News

Koz, Swartz Find No Love at New York High Court

By Ashby Jones

Huh. Strange to think that former Tyco head Dennis Kozlowski has been in prison for about three years already. After a ruling issued earlier today by the New York State Court of Appeals, it seems fairly clear he’ll be there for a while longer.

The justices of New York’s highest court earlier today rejected Kozlowski and former Tyco CFO Mark Swartz’s argument that their trials were flawed. Click here for the early Reuters story; here for the opinion.

Swartz and Kozlowski had appealed on two grounds: 1) that the trial court erred in allowing an attorney’s testimony relating to an internal investigation at Tyco and 2) that the trial court erred in denying a subpoena sought by Kozlowski and Swartz seeking certain interview notes prepared during the course of the internal investigation.

On the first issue, the court ruled that the testimony allowed in by the lower court did not constitute an “opinion” on the defendants’ guilt, and therefore was allowable as evidence. On the second issue, the court held that the materials sought by Kozlowski and Swartz were protected by the “qualified privilege covering trial preparation.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 16, 2008 (boomark / email).