By Samuel Maull
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Two former executives of Tyco International are on trial not over their wealth, but because they stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the company "with both fists," a prosecutor said Tuesday.

"They are here because they thought they were above the law, that rules that applied to others didn't apply to them," Assistant District Attorney Ann Donnelly told the jury in summations Tuesday. "They are here because they stole huge amounts of money."

The defendants, L. Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco's former chief executive, and Mark H. Swartz, the former chief financial officer, are accused of looting Tyco of $600 million to finance baronial lifestyles and fund pet investments.

The prosecutor defended using a videotape of an $18 million Manhattan apartment Tyco owned - with $15 million worth of furnishings - saying it was proper to illustrate how Kozlowski spent company funds.

Donnelly also defended the prosecution's use of a videotape of the Roman-themed $2.1 million 40th-birthday party Kozlowski threw for his wife on the Italian island of Sardinia in June 2001. Donnelly called the tape "a window" into how the defendants saw their relationship to Tyco.

"They looked at Tyco as a purely personal source of money whenever they wanted it," she said.

Kozlowski lawyer Stephen Kaufman had called both tapes and testimony about parties, yachts and mistresses "irrelevant."

Kozlowski, 57, and Swartz, 43, are accused of stealing $170 million by taking unauthorized bonuses and by abusing company loan programs. They allegedly netted another $430 million by manipulating Tyco stock prices from 1995 through 2002.

The jury was expected to get the case this week.

Kaufman and other defense lawyers have contended that Kozlowski and Swartz earned - and the board of directors and internal and external auditors were aware of - every penny they received from Tyco.

Kozlowski and Swartz are charged with a total of 32 counts of grand larceny, falsifying business records and violating state business laws. The grand larceny charge - a mega-larceny under state law since it alleges theft of more than $1 million - is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Tyco, which has about 270,000 employees and $36 billion in annual revenue, makes electronics and medical supplies and owns the ADT home security business.