Kozlowski’s Foundation Gave Little to Charity, Records Say

BOSTON —  While former Tyco International Ltd. Chairman L. Dennis Kozlowski allegedly committed more than $100 million of the conglomerate’s money to good causes, his own foundation gave little to charity, U.S. tax records show.

The Kozlowski Family Foundation made only one donation in 2000, and that was for $3,000, according to the nonprofit’s latest available filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

The foundation reported $534,473 in assets at the end of 2000.

New York prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission last week accused Kozlowski and another former Tyco executive of carrying out a massive theft and fraud scheme that allegedly netted them more than $600 million since 1995.

Kozlowski has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Tyco, which says Kozlowski had been among the highest-paid U.S. CEOs during the last decade, also claimed in a lawsuit filed last week that he improperly used company funds to promote himself as a generous benefactor.

From 1997 to 2002, Kozlowski made donations and pledges to charities with more than $106 million of Tyco’s money, according to the Tyco lawsuit.

“At least $43 million of these donations were made for his personal benefit or were represented as his personal donations,” Tyco alleged.

In one instance, Kozlowski pledged $10 million of Tyco’s money to the California International Sailing Assn. in his name, the lawsuit alleged. Other Tyco contributions were made in Kozlowski’s name to schools, colleges and hospitals that had a personal link with Kozlowski.

Shackleton Schools, a Boston-based nonprofit that received the single 2000 donation from Kozlowski’s family foundation, named his daughter to its board.

Tyco and Kozlowski contributed nearly $4 million in all to the school, according to Luke O’Neill, the school’s founder. O’Neill told Reuters in June that Kozlowski personally contributed most of that amount.

Formed in mid-1998, Kozlowski’s New Hampshire-based foundation reported $10,168 in assets that year. No contributions were disclosed that year.

The foundation’s only contribution in 1999 was for $265 to the Tolstoy Foundation Inc., records show.

The foundation’s assets surged the following year after Kozlowski contributed $500,000 in cash to the charitable trust, according to disclosures to the IRS.