Former Tyco boss Dennis Kozlowski has spoken of life behind prison bars and the events that led to him being found guilty of stealing more than $100 million from the Bermuda-registered $40 billion conglomerate.

He gave a television interview to the CBS current affairs programme 60 Minutes as he contrasted his life today, in prison and earning $1 a day mopping floors and serving food to fellow inmates, to his high-rolling days when he was paid more than $100 million as the CEO of Tyco.

"In my wildest imagination, when I would project myself into my late 50s and 60s, where I would be or what I would be doing. If I make a list of 100 different things, here would never make that list," Kozlowski told 60 Minutes' Morley Safer, in an interview that was conducted in the Mid-State Correctional Facility in New York.

Kozlowski, 60, is currently serving between eight and 25 years behind bars after a corporate scandal in which he was eventually found guilty of using Tyco's immense wealth as his "own personal piggy bank".

Amongst the lavish excesses revealed in the court case was the spending of $6,000 of company money to buy a gold shower curtain for a $19 million New York apartment he got Tyco to purchase. The apartment was furnished with $11 million of stuff, including the celebrated shower curtain and a $15,000 "doggy umbrella stand."

Although he admits "signing off" for the decorating of the apartment, Kozlowski told the TV programme he had never seen the shower curtain.

"The first time I heard about that shower curtain was after I was out of the company and I read about it in a newspaper. I was calling around asking 'Where is this shower curtain?' But to this day, I wouldn't know it if it fell on me," he said.

Other excesses brought up in the court case included a $2 million birthday party to mark his wife Karen's 40th birthday. It was held on the Italian island of Sardinia and lasted four days and included servants dressed in togas, a special cake with an anatomically correct woman with exploding breasts and an ice Statue of David urinating vodka. The party was disguised as a shareholder meeting in order to get Tyco to fund half the bill.

Details like those, and his astronomical pay, is what Kozlowski believes sank him from the start of the court case in the eyes of the jury.

The former CEO believes he was a "dead duck" from the start. He told Mr. Safer: "I was a guy sitting in a courtroom who made $100 million a year. And I think a juror sitting there just would have to say, 'All that money, he musta done somethin' wrong.' It's as simple as that."

In the court case Kozlowski and former chief financial officer Mark Swartz, 46, were charged with stealing $170 million, pocketing an additional $430 million through company stock sales and lying about Tyco's finances. Kozlowski was also accused of granting himself unauthorised bonuses and running hundreds of millions of dollars of personal expenses through interest free company loans.

Kozlowski was found guilty on 22 counts of grand larceny, conspiracy and securities fraud. He was jailed and ordered to pay restitution and fines of almost $200 million. The 60-year-old is pursuing an appeal against his conviction.

Swartz was given the same jail term as Kozlowski and is also appealing.

As reported in the Royal Gazette earlier this month at the Tyco annual general meeting, held at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, the company, which plans to separate into three distinct entities later this year, has reviewed its guide to ethical conduct for company employees and executives.