New York ? In the Middle Ages, it is said, a sheriff would lock deliberating jurors in a room without food or water until they reached a verdict.

With no such option for the squabbling jurors in the trial of two Tyco International executives accused of looting the company for $600 million, the judge sent the jury home for the weekend to relax.

The divided panel sent the judge several notes for two days, reporting escalating tensions before declaring that its talks were “irreparably compromised.”

Tensions were heightened by conflicting reports about whether a juror delivered an “OK” gesture to defense lawyers Friday as she passed them on her way to the jury box. The defense attorneys, along with the judge, said they didn’t see any signal.

State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus, when informed of the alleged incident, said he would continue telling jurors they should consider nothing but the evidence in the case.

Even before the speculation about the juror’s hand motion, defense attorneys were pressing for a mistrial. Obus denied those requests and told the jury all he could: “Try again.”

“He can encourage them to go back and do the best they can,” said Michael Connolly, a Boston lawyer who specializes in business litigation. “I would expect that on Monday, the judge would ask them to work another day.”

If the jury’s efforts are futile, he said, the judge can instruct jurors to respect and consider one anothers’ thoughts on the evidence, and to try hard to reach a verdict.

If that fails, a mistrial looms, along with the prospect of a retrial in a case that took nearly six months to present to the jury.

Former Tyco chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski, 57, and former chief financial officer Mark Swartz, 43, are accused of stealing $600 million from the conglomerate. They face up to 30 years in prison if convicted of the 32 counts against them.

Kozlowski’s $6,000 shower curtain and $2 million toga party on a Mediterranean island made him a symbol of end-of-the-millennium greed and excess on Wall Street.

The defense argued that the two men earned every dime and that the board of directors and the company’s auditors knew about the compensation.

The jurors specified in a note that they were not a hung jury. But, they said, “We firmly believe that this jury’s ability to communicate and deliberate with an open mind is irreparably compromised.”