New York ? The former top executive of American International Group Inc. plundered an AIG retirement program of billions of dollars because he was angry at being forced out of the company, a lawyer for AIG told jurors Monday at the start of a civil trial.

Attorney Theodore Wells told the jury in Manhattan that former AIG Chief Executive Officer Maurice “Hank” Greenberg improperly took $4.3 billion in stock from the company in 2005, after he was ousted by the company amid investigations of accounting irregularities.

“Hank Greenberg was mad. He was angry,” Wells said in U.S. District Court of the emotional state of the man who, over a 35-year-career, built AIG from a small company into the world’s largest insurance provider. He said the saga is a story of “anger, betrayal and cover-up.”

Wells said that Greenberg, within weeks of being forced out in mid-2005, gave the go-ahead for tens of millions shares to be sold from a trust fund. The fund was set up decades ago to provide incentive bonuses to a select group of AIG management and highly compensated employees that they would receive upon their retirement.

Wells showed the jury several clips of Greenberg speaking on videotape about the responsibilities of the trust fund. He called it Greenberg’s “videotaped confession.”

Wells asked the jury to award AIG $4.276 billion and 185 million AIG shares.