NEW YORK — Testimony in the trial of Mark Belnick, Tyco International's former top lawyer, ended Thursday after prosecutors mounted a brief rebuttal case in an attempt to show that the defendant accepted a payoff from his former boss in a Washington hotel in March 2000.
It was in that hotel that L. Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco's then-chief executive, paid Belnick as much as $17 million after he showed Kozlowski a document indicating that $100,000 of Tyco's money had been sent to the CEO's girlfriend, prosecutors say.
The first rebuttal witness was Vincent Valenzuela, security chief of Washington's Four Seasons Hotel. He testified that he had retrieved records showing that Kozlowski and Belnick were in the luxury hotel the night of March 28.
Belnick acknowledged at the end of five days of testimony Wednesday that he had met Kozlowski in his hotel room that night. When Assistant District Attorney John Moscow asked what they talked about, he said the CEO promised him a large bonus for his work in successfully guiding Tyco through a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry.
Belnick initially failed to mention that he and the then-CEO discussed what Moscow calls the "mistress document," which shows that $100,000 had been sent to Karen Mayo, then Kozlowski's girlfriend and now his wife. He later admitted they discussed it.
Moscow also called Tyco's chief pilot David Hale to testify that he had flown Kozlowski from Teterboro, N.J., to Washington, D.C., the night of March 28, 2000, and back to New Jersey the next day.
Belnick, 57, has been on trial for eight weeks in Manhattan's state Supreme Court on charges of first-degree grand larceny, falsifying business records and securities fraud. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the top count, grand larceny.
Belnick's acceptance of the bonus of $17 million in cash and stock is the basis of the grand larceny charge. Prosecutors say he received the bonus not for legal work but as a payoff for helping to hide Kozlowski's alleged thefts during the SEC probe.
And prosecutors say Belnick knew the bonus was illegal because he knew Kozlowski was not authorized to grant it and that Tyco's board never approved it.
Belnick testified that he believed every cent he got from Tyco was authorized.
Belnick is also accused of misusing Tyco's relocation loan programs. Prosecutors say he took nearly $15 million in relocation loans to buy a Manhattan apartment and a $10 million house in the ski resort town of Park City without noting the loans on the proper forms. This is the basis of the falsifying business records charge.