NEW YORK (AP) – Tyco International Ltd.’s former top lawyer, Mark A. Belnick, was acquitted Thursday of charges that he stole millions of dollars by accepting an illegal bonus and abusing company loan programs.

The Manhattan jury returned the “not guilty” verdicts in its fifth day of deliberations, while prosecution and defense lawyers had been discussing a possible plea deal.

Belnick, 57, was tried in state Supreme Court on charges of first-degree grand larceny, securities fraud and falsifying business records. He had faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the top count, grand larceny.

Belnick sat impassively as the jury foreman repeatedly said, “not guilty.” But on the last count, he bowed his head into his interlaced fingers and shook while sobbing.

His wife let out a loud gasp and a sob. Then she wept as the final “not guilty” verdicts were read.

Belnick, who kissed his wife several times while leaving the courthouse, told news reporters, “I feel relieved.”

His lead lawyer, Reid Weingarten, refused to discuss a possible plea deal. “We wanted a verdict,” he said. “The long and the short of it, from day one of this trial, is that we were very confident.”

Weingarten showed his confidence by agreeing to seat an alternate juror after deliberations had begun. An alternate can be seated once deliberations start only if the defense consents, and that consent is rarely given.

The basis of the defense team’s confidence seemed to be the absence of a smoking gun. Prosecutors asked jurors to speculate about interactions between Belnick and others and to infer his alleged crimes from those interactions.

For example, Belnick was charged with grand larceny because he accepted cash and stock worth up to $17 million as a bonus awarded by former chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski, supposedly for guiding Tyco safely through a Securities and Exchange Commission probe of the company’s accounting practices.

But prosecutors said the bonus was not for legal work but for hiding massive thefts by Kozlowski and chief financial officer Mark Swartz from the SEC inquiry.

Assistant District Attorney John Moscow produced the so-called “mistress document,” which showed Tyco money being sent to Kozlowski’s girlfriend. He said Belnick met the CEO in a Washington hotel, showed him the document and left the hotel with $17 million.

Belnick testified that Kozlowski told him during the meeting at which he was hired that he had the authority to set his compensation. Based on that statement, Belnick said, he believed Kozlowski was authorized to grant him the bonus.

Justice Michael Obus had instructed the jurors that, when deliberating the grand larceny charge, they could consider whether Belnick had a good faith, reasonable belief that he had a right to accept the bonus offered by Kozlowski.

Prosecutors alleged that Belnick’s crimes made him guilty of securities fraud because he had, in effect, stolen from Tyco shareholders.

Belnick also was accused of abusing Tyco’s loan programs by borrowing nearly $15 million to which he was not entitled and then failing to properly disclose the debts. The falsifying business records counts were based on these allegations.

Prosecutors said Belnick took one no-interest loan so he could buy a $4 million apartment in Manhattan and another so he could buy a $10 million house in the ski resort town of Park City, Utah, where Tyco had no offices.

Belnick has said he intends to repay the loans.

Asked after court what he would do next, Belnick replied, “At Tyco, I did my very best. And whatever I do now, I’ll do my very best.”

Jurors left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.

Kozlowski, 57, and Swartz, 43, were indicted on charges of stealing $600 million from Tyco. Their trial ended in a mistrial in May after a juror received a menacing letter. They are expected to be tried again in January.

Tyco, based in Bermuda but with U.S. headquarters in West Windsor, N.J., makes everything from telecommunications equipment to home alarm systems. In 2003, the conglomerate had about 250,000 employees worldwide and sales of about $36 billion.

AP-ES-07-15-04 1848EDT