Ripped from the headlines: A TV trial for Tyco execs?

The trial of former Tyco International Ltd. executives L. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark H. Swartz was nothing if not entertaining.

Two former employees testified they had affairs with Kozlowski and were richly rewarded. There was the home video of the $2 million birthday party Kozlowski threw for his wife in Sardinia, complete with buff Roman guards and scantily clad maidens.

Then the jurors began to attack each other, with one holdout for acquittal claiming the others didn't have open minds. That juror, Ruth Jordan, then made what some said was an ''OK" gesture to defense lawyers -- an action that may have prompted the threatening letter that caused the judge to declare a mistrial Friday.

If you think it all sounds wonderfully dramatic, you're not alone. Writers and producers on NBC's popular ''Law and Order" TV shows have been watching the trial closely. They think the high-profile white-collar crime case could provide the basis of an episode that, as NBC likes to say in its promos, is ''ripped from the headlines."

Rene Balcer, executive producer and head writer for ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent," said the Tyco trial would be perfect for a fourth ''Law & Order" show now in development. The new series, ''Law & Order: Trial by Jury," is likely to debut next winter as a midseason show, he said.

''It's definitely up their alley, and I'm sure Dick Wolf has got it penciled in for the fourth episode," said Balcer, referring to the executive producer and creator of the ''Law & Order" franchise.

Balcer said the new show would follow a variation of the standard ''Law & Order" narrative. ''The show will start with an arraignment, then it will focus on the prosecutors' office, which have their own team of investigators," he said. ''Halfway through, the trial starts. This show will take a much more omniscient point of view than the others and will go into the jury room."

The focus on the jury could make the Tyco trial perfect for a fictionalized script. Midway through the ill-fated deliberations, jurors wrote desperate notes to the judge saying the atmosphere in the jury room ''had turned poisonous" and that members were trading ''extreme accusations" that made deliberations impossible.

The bitter rift between Jordan and the 11 other jurors had turned into personal attacks and name-calling -- a situation ripe with dramatic possibilities.

But would the government's case against Tyco, with its complex allegations of improper bonuses, falsified business records, and payments in the form of forgiven company loans, make for good television?

''People often think financial stories don't make great drama, but on 'Criminal Intent' we fashioned a pretty good story out of the Enron debacle that dealt with sophisticated financial concepts," Balcer said.

The episode, entitled ''Tuxedo Hill," tells how a company financial officer is blackmailed into signing off on questionable financial statements.

The statements show how the fictitious Mattawin company used a shell company, Tuxedo Hill, to generate paper profits and hide losses -- much as Enron did through numerous deals with purportedly independent entities.

The show, as it sometimes does, also tossed in an inside joke. Balcer, who wrote the episode, noted that one of the characters has a dog named ''Ebitda." The acronym is an accounting term for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Jeffrey Krasner can be reached at krasner@globe.com.