TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) — L. Dennis Kozlowski, imprisoned for looting millions from Tyco International, the conglomerate he once headed, claims he’s not guilty and that jurors convicted him because of his huge salary.Kozlowski, now 60 and serving an eight- to 25-year prison sentence, makes the comments in an interview set to air on Sunday on the CBS programme “60 Minutes,” according to the network.

“I was a guy sitting in a courtroom making $100 million a year,” Kozlowski tells reporter Morley Safer in his first network TV interview since going to prison. “And I think a juror sitting there just would have to say, `All that money? He must have done something wrong.’ I think ... it’s as simple as that.”

Kozlowski became a poster boy for corporate greed amid revelations about his lavish spending — including a $30 million Manhattan apartment, paintings by Renoir and Monet on which he evaded sales tax and a $2 million toga birthday party for his much-younger wife, who reportedly asked for a divorce in a prison visit with him last year.

That lifestyle might have swayed the jury, Kozlowski told a reporter just before his sentencing in September, 2005.

Today, Kozlowski resides at New York’s Mid-State Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison near Utica, where he was interviewed.

He said he was unfairly associated with other convicted white-collar criminals whose accounting frauds wiped out thousands of jobs and billions in investor assets. Kozlowski instead called his case “a major pay dispute,” saying he simply lacked documents to prove he was authorised to receive disputed bonuses.

“I am absolutely not guilty of the charges,” Kozlowski tells Safer in the interview, according to CBS.

“There was no criminal intent here.”

“Nothing was hidden. There were no shredded documents,” he adds.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on Kozlowski’s interview.

Kozlowski and a subordinate were convicted in June 2005 of grand larceny, falsifying business records, securities fraud and other charges for looting a total of $600 million from Tyco, now based in West Windsor, New Jersey.

The conviction came after a four-month trial and 11 days of jury deliberations in a retrial — the first one ended in a mistrial — that toned down the emphasis on Kozlowski’s lifestyle.

But in the interview, he referred to reports that his company apartment in Manhattan was decorated with items including a $15,000 umbrella stand and a $6,000 shower curtain charged to Tyco.

“I signed off on a decorator,” he says, “that was my involvement.”

Kozlowski avoided any specifics about evidence in his case because of ongoing shareholder lawsuits and an upcoming appeal of his conviction, according to a spokesman for “60 Minutes,” which did not provide a transcript of the interview.

Tyco makes electronics, medical diagnostic equipment, engineered products and security and fire suppression systems. It is in the process of splitting into three publicly traded firms: one in health care, the second in electronics and Tyco International, which will retain the current engineered products and safety divisions.