In 'Astonishing' Move, Kerik Pleads Guilty

Allan Lengel
The Nation
November 5, 2009

/category/nation/Bernard Kerik, the former police commissioner of New York City whose meteoric rise to the national spotlight was matched only by his even faster fall, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to eight felony counts that included lying to the White House and tax crimes. The plea agreement calls for a sentence of up to nearly three years.

"It is a sad day when the former chief law enforcement officer of New York City pleads guilty to eight federal felonies," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a prepared statement.

Lawrence Kobilinsky, an acquaintance of Kerik and a forensics professor and chairman of the Department of Sciences at John Jay College in New York , was trying on Thursday to grasp the idea of the tainted American icon going off to prison for a while.

"That is just amazing," Kobilinsky said. "It's ironic to see him behind bars right now. It's kind of shocking in a way. It's sad, especially since he was the commissioner of corrections. This is astonishing."

But, he added: "We live in a land of laws, and there's no excuse for breaking the law. He was always strong-minded with a strong ego. He felt he was always in control, always in charge. I think the danger there is you do things that go beyond the things you should be doing."

As part of the guilty plea, federal prosecutors agreed to erase his Kerik's pending federal trials -- two in New York and one in Washington. The deal, which recommends a 27- to 33-month prison term, was entered before U.S. District Judge Stephen C. Robinson, who was scheduled to preside over Kerik's first trial in White Plains, N.Y.

Kerik, 54, pleaded guilty to two counts of tax fraud, one count of making a false statement on a loan application and five separate counts of making false statements to the federal government. Two of the charges related to statements Kerik made to the White House while the Bush administration was considering him to lead the Department of Homeland Security. He also agreed to pay restitution of $187,931.

Kerik admitted that he failed to report the $255,000 value of a renovation done free of charge by a New Jersey contractor that was trying to land a city license. He also admitted that he lied about the renovations and his relationship with the contractor, which had suspected mob ties, when he was being vetted for the White House cabinet post.

Sentencing was set for Feb. 18.

The plea agreement closes the latest chapter in a checkered career for Kerik, who became a national hero as New York's police commissioner after the 9/11 attacks.

Kerik became a volunteer bodyguard and chauffeur for Rudy Giuliani during his first bid for mayor. Giuliani later named him commissioner of the correction department and, in 2000, the police commissioner. Kerik remained commissioner until December 2001 and later went on to work in Iraq as an adviser to the Interior Ministry for the Coalition Provisional Authority that administered Iraq.

Giuliani gave Kerik a ringing endorsement to head the Department of Homeland Security in 2004. But a background check found Kerik had unpaid taxes for his nanny. From there, more serious allegations began to surface, and he withdrew his bid for the coveted spot.

About three years ago, he pleaded guilty in New York State Supreme Court to two misdemeanor charges tied to his accepting renovations of his Bronx apartment. He avoided jail time but agreed to a $221,000 fine.

After that, he was hit by several federal charges, which the feds broke down into three separate trials.

Robinson isn't likely to have much sympathy for Kerik during sentencing in February.

On Oct. 20, the angry judge revoked Kerik's bond and put him in the Westchester County Jail for leaking sealed documents to help promote his case. At the time, he described Kerik as "a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance."

Court records show that Kerik voluntarily checked himself into the jail's psychiatric unit on Oct. 22 for 10 days. But the prison gave him a clean bill of mental health and released him from that section.

Kerik remains in jail, but the U.S. Attorneys office said the judge has agreed to address the issue of the revoked bail.

The "Toxic" Avenger: NY Judge Jails
Bernie Kerik, Calling Him Selfish, Arrogant

By The Associated Press
New York Lawyer
October 21, 2009

A federal judge yesterday revoked bail for former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and sent him to jail to await a corruption trial scheduled to start next week. Calling Mr. Kerik "a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance," Southern District Judge Stephen Robinson in White Plains said he was revoking the $500,000 bail because Mr. Kerik disclosed sealed case information to the trustee of his legal defense fund.

The trustee shared some of the information with the Washington Times, which did not publish it.

The judge said he did not believe Mr. Kerik's claim that the trustee had been hired as a lawyer and was therefore allowed to see the information. Mr. Kerik was being jailed to make sure he was unable to "influence witnesses or prospective jurors," Judge Robinson said.

Mr. Kerik is charged with accepting apartment renovations from a construction company in exchange for recommending the company for city contracts. He has pleaded not guilty. Defense lawyer Barry Berke said he would appeal the ruling and seek a stay, but he said he was unsure if that could be accomplished before the trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday.

Mr. Kerik faces a second trial on tax charges, and a third over claims he lied to White House officials vetting him for the position of Homeland Security secretary.

Kerik's Troubles Follow Giuliani

Les Payne
Newsday
November 11, 2007

The failings of Bernard Kerik have been brought to book by his 16-count federal indictment that also exposes cracks in the judgment of his chief enabler, GOP presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.

The man Giuliani recommended to head the nation's Homeland Security Department was fingerprinted and pleaded "not guilty" to charges of conspiracy, tax fraud and making false statement under oath. The former New York City police commissioner has not been proven guilty, of course, but his fortunes will likely influence those of his compadre Giuliani.

Long before Kerik's current troubles, in fact even before he was named police commissioner in 2000, then-mayor Giuliani ignored warnings about his shady ethics. First, Giuliani flatly denied to the press that he was been warned about Kerik lobbying city officials for Interstate Industrial Corp., a construction company reportedly linked to organized crime. Years later, before a grand jury, Giuliani changed his denial to a muddle about having been told that he had been warned, but maintaining that he, himself, did not remember, according to The New York Times.

When Giuliani's man withdrew his Homeland Security nomination seven days after the Bush administration brandished it, the nation got a glimpse of what New Yorkers already knew. What was said of Giuliani-Kerik back then bears repeating, so here goes a touch-up.

Without Giuliani, Kerik might be tending bar in Bayonne. He may indeed land there should he escape the calaboose. It was in 1993 that the then Lord Mayor first took Kerik on as bodyguard and chauffeur. The undercover detective had an uncanny nose for whose head to knock and whose rear to kiss. A high-school dropout and martial arts expert, the troubled son of a prostitute attached himself to the law-and-order mayor as only a chauffeur could.

As the gentleman is best known by his valet, the politician-on-the-make is best known by his bodyguard and driver. No secret, no matter how intimate, escapes the eyes and ears of the bodyguard-driver. Already we know that the thrice-married former mayor and the thrice-married Kerik ran scandalously afoul of the "moral values" vows given lip service by the likes of the zany Rev. Pat Robertson.

In his autobiography, Kerik spared us whatever juice he may have observed while chauffeuring Giuliani around. In fairness, there may have been none. But the detective and the former prosecutor have established a bond that surpasses all other explanations.

After becoming mayor, Giuliani set his GED-trained brass-knuckles on an upwardly spiraling staircase with no ceiling in sight. Kerik was anointed deputy commissioner, then head of the Department of Correction, and, finally, to the amazement of all, the commissioner of the New York Police Department.
The disaster of 9/11 provided a windfall for Giuliani, who had been reduced to a philandering, lame-duck mayor of a city eager to forget him. Both men have profited immensely in wake of the dastardly handiwork of Osama bin Laden. In financial forms filed at the Pentagon in '03, Kerik skimmed over properties he owned or had access to, but admitted to receiving between $500,000 and $1 million for 25 or so speeches he delivered. His salary at Giuliani Partners Inc. was listed as $500,000.

Kerik's transgressions were so grand and disqualifying that Giuliani must have been aware. But, in the former mayor's self-righteousness, his partner's failings so outweighed his loyalty that he likely deemed it petit. Even now he praises the man who had served him well since his days as chauffeur. Indeed, Kerik had witnessed the collapse of the towers, authored a bestselling book after that calamity and maintained his puppy-like loyalty to Giuliani as the duo bathed in the glory and raked in the millions.

The seemingly odd-couple relationship between Giuliani and Kerik is probably no more complex than that of a provincial, self-righteous prosecutor from Garden City South and a thuggish cop from the streets of Newark. Giuliani watchers see the unraveling of Kerik as but a prelude to the unraveling of Giuliani on the campaign trail.

Should this woefully unsuited candidate defy the White House gravitational field, however, Kerik may well be in for a presidential pardon.

Federal Grand Jury Indicts Kerik
Former NYPD Head Expected To Turn Himself In Friday

CBS News
November 8, 2007

NEW YORK (CBS) ? Sources tell CBS 2 HD Bernard Kerik was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday, a development many expected after prosecutors had sought criminal charges for tax fraud, corruption, and conspiracy charges against the former NYPD commissioner.

Kerik is expected to turn himself in at the federal courthouse in White Plains on Friday.

As recently as Tuesday, Kerik said he was hoping to avoid the indictment, but admitted to CBS 2 HD in an exclusive interview that he had "no idea" if he expected to be charged.

The charges plunge Kerik back into severe legal jeopardy, and it could damage the presidential hopes of GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani, who is at a critical juncture with the Iowa caucuses less than two months away.

In his exclusive interview with CBS 2 on Tuesday, Kerik seemed aware he could impact Giuliani's White House bid.

"It's horrible, and people have got to look at Giuliani for the person he is, the leadership skills he has, the management skills he has and what he can do for this country," he said.

Reports surfaced earlier this week that Giuliani knew more about Kerik's relationship with Interstate Industrial Corporation than he's let on. He's responded by defending Kerik but apologizing at the same time.

"I should have done a better job of checking him out. I didn't and I've apologized for that," Giuliani said.

"The campaign is obviously concerned because Kerik's problems raise questions about Giuliani's judgment," added CBS News Justice Department correspondent Bobb Orr.

Kerik's troubles stem from his relationship with Interstate Industrial, which financed a six-figure renovation of his Bronx apartment while seeking a city license. The company has been accused of having ties to the mob.

"This has been an emotional nightmare for me and my family for the last three years," Kerik said Tuesday. "You know, enough is enough."

Kerik has already pleaded guilty to an ethics charge, but that will most certainly be the least of his problems as he faces even tougher legal battles.

.                  Bush Knew About Kerik Past: Report

By Ian Bishop
New York Post
April 9, 2007

WASHINGTON - Red flags about Bernard Kerik's checkered past were brushed aside by the White House in 2004 so that President Bush could make a political splash by nominating the 9/11 hero to be the next Homeland Security chief, according to a new report.

Despite Kerik's "bald-faced" lies to investigators, vetters uncovered shady financial deals, an ethics violation and ties to a reputed mob family - yet pushed Kerik ahead, only to watch as his nomination collapsed.   The
BERNARD KERIK                           Washington Post reports.
A Giuliani albatross

Federal prosecutors have told the former New York City police commissioner that he will likely be charged with several felonies, including lying to White House vetters.

And Kerik's embarrassing Cabinet bid has some questioning the judgment of ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the 2008 GOP presidential-nomination front-runner, who nominated Kerik, and of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who headed the vetting.

"I should have done a better job of investigating him," the campaigning Giuliani recently admitted.

As for Gonzales, under fire for firing eight U.S. attorneys not considered "Bushies," Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), on "Fox News Sunday," said, "The recent revelations about Bernie Kerik . . . are another reason this attorney general should go."

Go Ahead, Scrutinize Me, Sez Rudy

By Angela Mosconi in Manalapan, Fla.
Celeste Katz in New York
New York Daily News
April 1, 2007

Presidential contender Rudy Giuliani said yesterday that Americans have "a right to question" his judgment as his former top cop Bernard Kerik now faces possible felony charges.

"People have a right to question my judgment. They have a right to question everything about me," the former mayor said with wife, Judith, at his side after speaking in Florida to an anti-tax group. But the GOP front-runner exhorted voters to consider his entire record.

"I've had a long career - maybe, in some ways, the longest and most complex of anyone running for President," said Giuliani, who is also a former U.S. attorney.

Giuliani recommended Kerik to President Bush to head the Department of Homeland Security in 2004 but the nomination fell apart when Kerik's legal woes were revealed.

Last June, Kerik pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gifts and a free renovation of his Bronx apartment while he was a city official.

Now, sources confirm, he is facing possible felony charges of tax evasion and providing false information, as well as conspiracy to eavesdrop on former state attorney general candidate Jeanine Pirro's husband.

Pirro in 2005 was caught on tape speaking with Kerik about possibly placing a recorder in a boat to listen in on her husband.

Kerik's lawyer, Kenneth Breen, confirmed he has rejected one plea deal "because he paid his taxes and he did nothing wrong. He's not going to plead to something that he didn't do."

Giuliani reiterated that he blew it by backing Kerik.

Rudy: Sorry I Hyped Kerik
Admits Background Botch for Fed Post

By David Saltonstall
New York Daily News
March 31, 2007

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani admitted yesterday that he goofed when he recommended the now-disgraced Bernard Kerik to be the nation's homeland security chief.

"The simple reality is that it is my responsibility - the background check should have been much more complete," Giuliani told Boston radio station WRKO. "And I apologized at the time to the President for making this mistake."

The former mayor could find himself facing more questions about Kerik. The Washington Post reports today that federal prosecutors told Kerik he is likely to face several felony charges, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping.

Giuliani does not face any legal problems related to the allegations against his friend and former business partner, legal sources told the Post. But it could be an embarrassment for his presidential campaign, because the charges are related to when Kerik served Giuliani's administration and when the two ran Giuliani-Kerik, a security arm of Giuliani Partners.

Last month Kerik turned down a plea deal offered by the feds, and his lawyer told the Post Kerik is innocent.

The report comes amid revelations that as far back as 2000, Giuliani was warned about Kerik's relationship with a company with suspected mob ties, according to a story in The New York Times that relied on secret grand jury testimony by Giuliani and others.

At the time, Kerik was Giuliani's correction commissioner and was under consideration to head the NYPD - a job Giuliani ultimately gave his old friend.

But Giuliani said yesterday that he had no recollection of the briefings on Kerik in 2000, even though he did not dispute testimony that they had taken place.

In 2004, Giuliani recommended Kerik to be President Bush's homeland security chief - a nomination that was hastily pulled amid a widening probe into Kerik's ties to the company, Interstate Industrial Corp.

Giuliani also tried to downplay comments he made Thursday that implied his wife Judi, who is a nurse, might be an important player in his administration.

"Obviously, she will not be a Cabinet member or attend most Cabinet meetings - if any. But she will pursue a campaign to educate Americans on preventing illness," Giuliani said in a statement released by his campaign office.

                       Testimony by Giuliani Indicates
                       He Was Briefed  on Kerik in ’00

By William K. Rashbaum
March 30, 2007

Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik’s relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records.

Mr. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony.

Mr. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Mr. Kerik’s appointment as the city’s top law enforcement officer. Mr. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Mr. Kerik’s entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation’s homeland security secretary.

In his testimony, given in April 2006, Mr. Giuliani indicated that he must have simply forgotten that he had been briefed on one or more occasions as part of the background investigation of Mr. Kerik before his appointment to the police post.

He said he learned only in late 2004 that the briefing or briefings had occurred, after the city’s investigation commissioner reviewed his own records from 2000. To this day, Mr. Giuliani testified, he has no specific recollection of any briefing or the details of what he was told. But he said he felt comforted because the chief investigator had cleared Mr. Kerik to be promoted.

"He testified fully and cooperatively," a statement from Mr. Giuliani’s consulting firm said of the former mayor’s grand jury appearance. The statement added: "Mayor Giuliani has admitted it was a mistake to recommend Bernie Kerik for D.H.S. and he has assumed responsibility for it."

Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty last summer to improperly allowing the company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, or its subsidiaries, to do $165,000 worth of free renovations on his Bronx apartment in late 1999 and 2000. The company has denied paying for the work, and has disputed any association with organized crime. But the two brothers who run it have been indicted in the Bronx on charges they lied under oath about their dealings with Mr. Kerik.

There is no evidence that Mr. Giuliani knew about the apartment renovation before promoting Mr. Kerik to police commissioner. But the top investigator who briefed Mr. Giuliani in 2000, the transcript shows, was aware that Mr. Kerik’s brother and a close friend had been hired by an affiliate of the company, which for years had been struggling to secure a city license.
For Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president and who has done well in early polls, his history with Mr. Kerik looms as a likely issue in the campaign. His own aides have anticipated that questions are likely to arise about Mr. Giuliani’s judgment in, among other things, promoting Mr. Kerik for one of the country’s most important national security posts.

Now, Mr. Giuliani, whose private company provides background checks for companies as part of its services, may have to explain his response to the information that was provided to him in 2000.

His company’s statement yesterday said that Mr. Giuliani was not concerned that issues surrounding Mr. Kerik would become a liability to his presidential campaign.

The transcript of Mr. Giuliani’s testimony was not given to The New York Times by any rival campaign.

In his testimony, Mr. Giuliani suggests he might have been presented with only limited information about Mr. Kerik’s issues. And he said the city investigators who did the background check on Mr. Kerik ultimately cleared him to be hired as police commissioner.

Mr. Giuliani testified that the background investigators’ approval might explain why he, and aides who were involved, could not recollect any briefing, according to the 101-page transcript of his April 20, 2006, testimony.

"We may have filed it away somewhere that it wasn’t as significant," Mr. Giuliani testified. Mr. Giuliani said Edward J. Kuriansky, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Investigation, had also forgotten about the briefings until he checked his records days after Mr. Kerik’s withdrawal from consideration as homeland security secretary in late 2004.

Mr. Kuriansky did not return phone calls seeking his account of what he remembered telling Mr. Giuliani.

According to the grand jury transcript, a prosecutor for the Bronx district attorney’s office told Mr. Giuliani that Mr. Kuriansky and his investigators had compiled a considerable body of knowledge about Mr. Kerik’s relationship with the company before his August 2000 appointment as police commissioner.

Mr. Kerik, who was then the city’s commissioner of correction, had himself come forward months earlier to tell the investigators that the company had recently given jobs to his brother, Donald, as well as the best man from his wedding, Lawrence Ray, and that he himself had interceded on the company’s behalf as it sought a city license, the prosecutor told Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Kerik even told the investigators that his friend Mr. Ray had recently been indicted on federal criminal charges, along with Edward Garafola, a reputed Gambino soldier, the brother-in-law of Salvatore Gravano, the former underboss known as Sammy the Bull.

An Interstate affiliate was at that time seeking a license to operate a waste transfer station on Staten Island. City officials refused to license the transfer station because of the organized crime allegations, which stemmed in part from the fact that the transfer station was bought in 1996 from two organized crime figures.

Interstate is a construction company based in New Jersey that undertakes large public and private projects in the metropolitan area.

The company has long denied the accusation of mob ties, and New Jersey regulators issued a license to the company in 2004, allowing it to do construction work on Atlantic City casinos, after a lengthy review of the same material. That license was suspended after the owners were charged with perjury last summer.

By 2000, Mr. Kerik had known or worked for Mr. Giuliani for close to a decade. Mr. Kerik first came to know Mr. Giuliani when he provided security during his second mayoral campaign. Mr. Giuliani later became godfather to two of Mr. Kerik’s children and promoted him to lead the Correction Department. Mr. Kerik was one of two candidates Mr. Giuliani seriously considered to succeed Howard Safir as police commissioner as Mr. Giuliani neared the final year of his administration.

Mr. Kerik served in that post for 16 months, and was at Mr. Giuliani’s side on the morning of Sept. 11 when the World Trade Center collapsed.

In their questioning of Mr. Giuliani last April, Bronx prosecutors sought repeatedly to determine how much the mayor remembered being told about Mr. Kerik’s problems, and what, if anything, he had done about the information.

Throughout his questioning, Mr. Giuliani said he remembered close to nothing about what he had been told about the broader background investigation of Mr. Kerik or what he had done after hearing it. He testified that he remembered being told something about Mr. Kerik’s experience as a security consultant in Saudi Arabia, but little else.

He testified, as well, that he could not remember if he had ever discussed the issues with Mr. Kerik directly.

At one point, a senior Bronx prosecutor, Stephen R. Bookin, asked Mr. Giuliani, "As you sit here today, your testimony is, and correct me if I am wrong, that you don’t recall ever being told that a close friend of your correction commissioner had been indicted in a federal case?"

Mr. Giuliani responded: "I don’t recall that until 2004. I can’t tell you that it wasn’t, but I don’t — I don’t — I don’t remember."

The prosecutor also explored whether Mr. Giuliani would find it odd that the city’s top investigator, with whom he met almost daily, would not have fully shared what appeared to be rather alarming information with him.

"Do you know of any reason why Mr. Kuriansky, who met with you every day that you were in town, part of your core group as you put it, would not have briefed you on these facts?" the prosecutors asked.

Mr. Giuliani, in the end, replied that the facts about Mr. Kerik might not have been presented to him in as much detail and with as much emphasis back in 2000.

The prosecutor then asked Mr. Giuliani whether, if the information had been presented to him with as much emphasis, he would have appointed Mr. Kerik police commissioner.

"If he told it to me the way you described it to me, no," Mr. Giuliani replied. "If he had told it to me in a different way because, maybe he didn’t know all of the facts, or had come to a different conclusion about the facts, then maybe I would have — I can’t tell you that."

Mr. Giuliani was a key backer of Mr. Kerik when President Bush nominated him to be homeland security secretary in December 2004. Mr. Kerik withdrew his name a week later, citing possible tax and immigration problems involving his family’s nanny.

Several newspapers at the time were already pursuing stories about his relationship with Interstate, which were published in the succeeding days. It is unclear to what extent Mr. Kerik’s relationship with the company was made clear to the White House before his nomination.

But Mr. Giuliani testified that Mr. Kerik had assured him that he had briefed presidential aides about the matter.

Mr. Kerik also assured him, Mr. Giuliani testified, that there was no reason for concern when questions later arose as to whether Interstate had paid for the renovations to his apartment.

"He told me that Interstate didn’t do the work, that another company had done it legitimately, that he had the checks to show he paid for it," Mr. Giuliani said.

Mr. Giuliani testified that he took Mr. Kerik’s word for it and did not ask to see the canceled checks.

Last year, when Mr. Kerik admitted in court that the renovations had actually been largely underwritten by Interstate or its subsidiaries, Mr. Giuliani released a statement that displayed no irritation at having been misled.

"Bernard Kerik has acknowledged his violations," the statement said, "but this should be evaluated in light of his service to the United States of America and the city of New York."

Kerik Pals in Lie Rap

By Denise Buffa
New York Post
July 20, 2006

The owners of a New Jersey construction company turned themselves in yesterday on charges that they lied to a grand jury investigating disgraced former top cop Bernard Kerik.

Brothers Frank and Peter DiTommaso were arraigned in Bronx Supreme Court, where prosecutors charged they lied under oath earlier this year when they said their firm, Interstate Industrial Corp. - long suspected as having mob ties - did not pay for the majority of renovations to Kerik's Riverdale apartment in 1999.

The renovations amounted to $165,000 in work.

The DiTommasos pleaded not guilty and were released on their own recognizance.

Kerik pleaded guilty late last month to accepting the free renovations when he was the city's correction commissioner. In pleading guilty to misdemeanors, Kerik said he made the mistake of accepting the extensive renovations - which included a Jacuzzi tub - from Interstate "thinking they were clean."

Perjury Indictments for Kerik Cronies

By Russ Buettner and Oren Yaniv
New York Daily News
July 18, 2006

Kerik Comedown Mayor Has Ex-top Cop's Name Removed from Manhattan Jail By Robert F. Moore, Tracy Swartz and Nancy Dillon New York Daily News July 3, 2006

Bernard Kerik's guilty plea enabled him to avoid time behind bars, but his name is on jail no more. Bernard Kerik's downfall was spelled out early yesterday when the all-capital letters bearing his name were unceremoniously stripped from a Manhattan jail - and remanded to the scrap heap. Mayor Bloomberg ordered the renaming of the downtown lockup late Saturday, a day after the former police commissioner copped a guilty plea in a corruption probe stretching back 18 months. Maintenance workers set out about 1 a.m. yesterday to unbolt three Bernard B. Kerik Complex signs in the dark and replace them with signs bearing the jail's old name: Manhattan Detention Complex. "When Mr. Kerik was to plead guilty, the mayor gave it some thought, weighed the options and directed the correction commissioner to have the signs taken down and have the facility revert to its prior name," said City Hall spokesman Stu Loeser. It was the latest fall from grace for Kerik, the city's ex-top cop and former Correction Department boss who was fingerprinted and photographed Friday as he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges. He stood before a Bronx judge and admitted illegally accepting $165,000 in free renovations on a Bronx apartment from a contractor with alleged mob ties. He was the city correction commissioner at the time. He also admitted that he failed to report a $28,000 loan from Nathan Berman, a prominent real estate developer. Authorities believe Kerik used the money to buy the apartment. The plea came less than five years after former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, in one of his last official acts, renamed the Manhattan jail nicknamed The Tombs in honor of his loyal protege, citing his heroism during 9/11. Giuliani declined to comment yesterday through a spokeswoman. In 2004, President Bush tapped Kerik to head the Department of Homeland Security. But the nomination was withdrawn amid a flurry of Daily News articles that unearthed Kerik's illegal acceptance of cash and gifts from a contractor working for Interstate Industrial, a construction firm long suspected of organized crime ties. "People were looking for a definitive move, and this was it," a Correction Department source said of Bloomberg's decision, which followed a Daily News editorial Saturday calling on the mayor to remove Kerik's name for the lockup. "I don't think the name change should be a surprise to anyone," the source added. New Yorkers visiting the jail at 125 White St. yesterday had differing views on the name change. "It doesn't really matter [whose name is on the jail]. It just matters what they do to people inside," said Maleek Nevels, 16, of Brooklyn, who was visiting his brother. "It does matter. Citizens know his name," argued Angel Mercado, 18, a lower East Side resident who was putting money into his girlfriend's inmate account. "He's a cop; he knew what he did was wrong." A veteran correction officer who works at the 881-bed complex yesterday welcomed back the jail's old name. "To have them put a crook's name on the building was a travesty," said the officer, who asked to remain anonymous. "They should have never done it." With Michael Saul Infamous Bernard Kerik's name may be off the Manhattan Detention Complex, but a host of other city buildings and landmarks still boast a connection to infamous New Yorkers. "My question is, when are they going to take Boss Tweed's name off the Tweed Courthouse?" asked one Kerik ally yesterday. The former courthouse on Chambers St. now houses the Education Department, but its namesake, William Tweed, is associated with big-scale corruption. The 19th century political boss was eventually convicted and imprisoned for stealing millions from city coffers. The courthouse went way over budget - turning into a cash cow for Tweed's cronies. Underhill Ave. in Brooklyn is named for an early English colonist most notable for heading a militia that slaughtered hundreds of Pequot Indians. Several other Brooklyn streets in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill are named for prominent slave-owning families. Nancy Dillon

Get His Name off Tombs, Say City Prison Workers By Veronika Belenkaya and Jose Martinez New York Daily News July 2, 2006

Ex-top cop Bernard Kerik leaves court after pleading guilty Friday. His name remains on Manhattan jail. Bernard Kerik has been disgraced and stuck with a criminal record, yet his name - for now - remains emblazoned on a downtown Manhattan jail. But the people who work in the Bernard B. Kerik Complex, better known as the Tombs, would rather see the name of their former boss and one-time police commissioner junked for good. "They can't keep it up there," a city correction officer grumbled yesterday. "It's got to come down." Kerik, 50, pleaded guilty on Friday to accepting $165,000 in free home renovations from a mob-connected contractor while he served as correction commissioner. But he ducked jail time. "The only reason he didn't go to jail is because his name is Kerik," said another jail guard. "It should go back to its original name." Kerik's plea deal was the flameout of a meteoric rise and fall in which he went from an NYPD detective chauffeuring former Mayor Rudy Giuliani to running the city's jails. He later headed the NYPD and was even nominated by President Bush to head the Department of Homeland Security in 2004. Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson - who prosecuted the former top cop - said Friday that Kerik's name is unlikely to stay on the jail. Mayor Bloomberg's spokesman Stu Loeser said yesterday, "No decision has been made yet." But workers in and around the two-building complex on White St. said keeping Kerik's name on the building sends the wrong message. "It makes a mockery out of the institution of trust and justice," said Richard Fletcher, a nurse at the Tombs. "He betrayed the public's trust, and we're not supposed to glorify people like that on a building." Giuliani renamed the facility after his loyal sidekick in 2001, crediting Kerik with a sharp turnaround in the city's jails. "The renaming of this complex will serve as a lasting reminder of his many important achievements," Giuliani said at the time. Being convicted of two crimes now also stands as part of Kerik's legacy. "Anybody that does something dishonest should not be honored," said Manny Crespo, who works as a security guard across from the Tombs. "They may as well name it after me."

Kerik Now a Criminal - But Holds Head High By Russ Buettner New York Daily News July 1, 2006

The city's former top cop is now a perp. Defiant and unapologetic to the end, Bernard Kerik was arrested and booked yesterday, processed through the same criminal justice system in which he worked for most of his adult life. He stood before a judge in state Supreme Court in the Bronx and admitted to having illegally accepted $165,000 in free renovations from a contractor with alleged links to the mob while he was the city correction commissioner. Kerik's camp spun the matter as a harmless paperwork snafu. But investigators, prosecutors and the judge characterized the case in far more serious terms, pointing out that Kerik now has a criminal record. "Mr. Kerik stands convicted of two crimes," said Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city Department of Investigation, outside court. "He was fingerprinted and photographed, just like every other perp," she said. "It is now a matter of public record that he abused his public position to benefit himself financially." Instead of facing a possible felony indictment, Kerik pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges. He agreed to pay fines and penalties totaling $221,000. He must pay the fines by Sept. 5 or serve 105 days in jail. Wearing a black suit with an American flag lapel pin, Kerik also admitted making calls on behalf of the city contractor, Interstate Industrial, even as the company was under investigation by city, state and federal authorities. "I admit that I took a gift from Interstate Companies or a subsidiary, and thinking they were clean, I spoke to city officials about Interstate on two occasions," Kerik said before Judge John Collins during the 10-minute proceeding. The second charge involved Kerik failing to report a $28,000 loan from Nathan Berman, a prominent real estate developer - money that authorities said Kerik used to help buy the apartment. Prosecutor Stephen Bookin, chief of the investigations bureau, carefully pointed out in court that while it may appear that Interstate paid Kerik in exchange for his help with regulators "there is no direct evidence of an agreement." Collins made note of Kerik's contribution to the city, "particularly on Sept. 11, 2001, and in the days thereafter. "Still, the defendant has violated the law for personal gain," Collins added. Robert Johnson, the Bronx district attorney, said Kerik's plea sends a message to unethical public officials that "they must tow the line because the investigators and prosecutors in this city will make them pay.... It is payment that he is now convicted of crimes." Johnson and Gill Hearn both described the 18-month investigation as difficult, involving more than 150 witnesses, scores of documents and the challenge of overcoming jurisdictional and statute of limitation difficulties. While they characterized the conviction as a tough blow to Kerik, it struck many as a sweet deal. Not only did Kerik avoid jail, the $290,000 profit he made on the sale of the illicitly remodeled apartment easily covers the fines. During a brief news conference outside the courthouse, Kerik's attorney Joseph Tacopina said his client had accounted for the gifts on tax forms, but declined to say when or how. Tacopina repeatedly stressed that the misdemeanors Kerik confessed to are not violations of state penal law, continuing a media push to downplay the severity of the charges. Tacopina also invoked Kerik's status as a fixture next to then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the days after the 9/11 attacks. "He was a hero when we needed him to be a hero," Tacopina said. "That can never be taken away from him." Kerik bore no signs of his head-spinning fall since he stood 18 months ago next to President Bush as the nominee to head the nation's Homeland Security Department. After the proceedings, the shaved-headed and stout former cop stood defiantly outside the courthouse and described the investigation as a nuisance. "The last year and a half have been a tremendous burden on me and my family," Kerik said. "It's funny, over the last year and a half I've watched and listened as people picked apart my 30-year career fighting crime and fighting injustice and tried to destroy everything I've ever done." Kerik spoke for less than two minutes and made few references to the charges, except to say that he "should have focused more" and "been more sophisticated" in filing financial disclosure forms. "But I think today is a way in which I've been held accountable for what I've done, or did not do," he said. As Kerik finished speaking, a reporter asked the former head of the nation's largest municipal police force if he was sorry. The defendant turned to Tacopina and said, "Let's go."

Kerik Pleads Guilty to Accepting Gifts in Corruption Probe New York Dail y News June 30, 2006

Former city Police Commissioner pleaded guilty today, the low point in long slide from respectability. More than 18 months after his Homeland Security nomination sank over ethics questions, former police commissioner Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty Friday to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from a New Jersey firm with alleged mob connections. Kerik pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanors in state Supreme Court in the Bronx in a deal that spared him any jail time. Kerik was instead ordered to pay a total of $221,000 in fines at the 10-minute hearing. Kerik acknowledged accepting $165,000 worth of renovations on his Bronx apartment from a company attempting to do business with the city — Interstate Industrial Corp., a business reputedly linked to organized crime. And he admitted failing to report a loan as required by city law. In entering his plea, Kerik admitted that he spoke with city officials about Interstate, but never acknowledged a link between the renovations and his support of the company. Outside court, Kerik showed no sign of remorse and offered no apology. “The last year and a half has been a tremendous burden,” Kerik said. “But today it’s over. Now I can get on with my business.” The plea bargain allows Kerik to continue his new career as a security consultant in the Middle East. Kerik’s former boss, ex-mayor Rudolph Giuliani, said the guilty pleas do not diminish the ex-police commissioner’s accomplishments. “Bernard Kerik has acknowledged his violations, but this should be evaluated in light of his service to the United States of America and the City of New York,” Giuliani said in a statement. Prosecutors had considered bringing felony bribery charges against Kerik based on allegations that in exchange for the renovations he helped Interstate seek business with the city. Through his attorney, Kerik had previously denied any wrongdoing, saying that he paid every bill he received for the job — about $30,000 — and that he never intervened for Interstate. The home, bought in 1999 for $170,000, sold in 2002 for $460,000 after real estate advertisements described it as a “gem” adorned with marble and granite. Kerik first drew national attention while leading the New York Police Department’s response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks. By late 2004, President Bush wanted him for homeland security chief, but he withdrew after acknowledging he had not paid all taxes for a family nanny-housekeeper and that the woman may have been in the country illegally. More problems surfaced last year when the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement filed court papers seeking to revoke Interstate Industrial’s license to work on casinos in Atlantic City. The papers cited testimony by mob turncoats that owners Frank and Peter DiTommaso were associates of the Gambino organized crime family. The civil complaint also detailed Kerik’s cozy relationship with an Interstate official. In 1999, he sent a series of e-mails to the official that “indicated his lack of sufficient funds to both purchase and renovate his new Bronx apartment” and “indicated he would provide information to Frank DiTommaso regarding New York City contracts,” the papers said. In recent months, a grand jury in the Bronx has heard conflicting testimony from the DiTommaso brothers — who denied paying for the renovations — and from a contractor who said they picked up most of the tab. Giuliani, a close friend of Kerik, also testified. Tough Guy Pushed - His Luck Too Far By Todd Venezia New York Post July 1, 2006 The life of Bernard Kerik is a rags-to-riches-to-disgrace story, in which the son of a murdered prostitute rose to become one of the top lawmen in the nation, only to see his career and reputation wash away in a wave of scandals. Born in Paterson, N.J., in 1956, Kerik grew up tough after his mother died when he was a toddler - bludgeoned to death, apparently by a pimp, in a seedy flophouse. Raised by his machinist father, he earned a reputation for toughness as he took up karate and became a black belt. He didn't get a high school diploma. He would later get a GED, but first he entered the Army, where he worked as an MP. His martial skills - and his sharp sartorial style - caught the eye of a general, who assigned him to train Special Forces soldiers in karate. After working as a New Jersey jail warden in the early 1980s, Kerik decided he wanted to join the NYPD. But at first, no one would take his calls, and he grew so frustrated that he wrote to then-Mayor Ed Koch, who sent him application forms. He became an undercover drug cop and an advocate for the families of slain officers. It was at a fund-raiser for this cause that he met then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani. They forged a relationship that led Kerik to the top. After providing security during Giuliani's campaign, Kerik was named to head the Department of Correction in 1993. He would get the NYPD Medal of Valor for reducing violence in jails. Giuliani named Kerik police commissioner in 2000, even though, at the time, he didn't even have a college degree. After Giuliani left office, Kerik went to Baghdad to build the police force. In December 2004, he was nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security by President Bush. It was supposed to be the crowing achievement of his career - but when investigators found he used an undocumented nanny for his two children, he stepped down, and a flood of other revelations surfaced. Everything from questions about his sale of stock in a taser company to his alleged affairs with a fellow correction officer and New York mega-publisher Judith Regan became public fodder. Eventually, his relationship with the mob-tainted Interstate Industrial Corp. came to light, and led to his guilty plea yesterday. Earlier Story: Kerik to Cop Plea Final-hour Deal Would Let Bernie Stay out of Jail, Avoid Indictment on Felony, Sez Source By Russ Buettner New York Daily News June 30, 2006 Former top cop Bernard Kerik is slated to stand before a Bronx judge today and admit to wrongfully accepting more than $200,000 in renovations to his home and failing to disclose a loan from a real estate developer. Kerik has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanors and pay a fine, instead of facing a possible felony indictment, according to a source briefed on the matter. One of the charges in the plea agreement carries a possible prison sentence of one year, but Kerik's deal ensures no prison time, sources told the Daily News. A plea would cap a stunning collapse for a man who carefully polished an image as the son of a drunken hooker who found balance in law enforcement's rigid certainties. He rose from the rough streets of Paterson, N.J., to head two city agencies - the Correction and Police departments - as a close loyalist of then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani. His fall from grace followed a brief moment as President Bush's nominee to head the nation's Homeland Security Department, before a series of revelations by The News led to an 18-month criminal investigation. Prosecutors had offered Kerik the plea deal with a deadline of today. He was scheduled to appear before Judge John Collins in Bronx state Supreme Court. He was said to have agreed to admit having accepted more than $200,000 worth of renovations to his Riverdale, Bronx, apartment from Interstate Industrial, a company long suspected of mob ties. Frank and Peter DiTommaso, the owners of the Clifton, N.J.-based company, had met Kerik in late 1998, when he was correction commissioner. The brothers had hired the best man from Kerik's wedding to help them ease regulators' mob concerns, which they have always denied. They also had hired Kerik's brother, Don. Both Kerik and the DiTommasos have denied that Kerik did anything to help Interstate. But they have yet to acknowledge, let alone explain, why the company paid for the work at the Riverdale residence. The brothers face no charges because the statute of limitations has expired, a source said. Kerik, who declined comment yesterday, faced charges because the time limit for charging public officials runs five years from their last day in office. The second count in the deal stems from Kerik's failure to report a loan from real estate developer Nathan Berman, the source said. Kerik met Berman and Berman's father in law, Eduard Nakhamkin, in the late 1990s, when Berman was shifting careers from running Nakhamkin's Russian art galleries to developing real estate. Berman has specialized in converting numerous lower Manhattan commercial buildings into luxury rentals, with the benefit of extensive tax abatements. In June 1999, Berman and Nakhamkin hosted Kerik and his wife, Hala, at Nakhamkin's waterside villa on the Mediterranean island of Majorca. Oddly, Hala Kerik's voter registration was changed to Berman's offices at 17 John St. in January 2004, The News found. When The News called Berman last year about the relationship, and about having hosted Kerik in Majorca, he grew testy. Asked about Hala Kerik's voter registration, Berman abruptly hung up. Joseph Tacopina, Kerik's attorney, argued yesterday that the charges to which Kerik would plead aren't crimes, but simply violations of the city's administrative law. But it's an academic point, given that one charge, a violation of the city's Conflict of Interest law, is defined as a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison. "I think this will bring finality to these investigations and allow Bernie to move on with his life," Tacopina said.

N.J. Case Adds to Bernie's Problems
Complaint Sez City's Ex-top Cop &
Mafia-linked Co. Traded Favors

By Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
November 16, 2005

Bernard Kerik (above) reportedly paid just $17,800 for $200,000 worth of renovations to a three-bedroom apartment (below) in a Riverdale building. Records show he sold the flat for $460,000.   A Gambino-controlled construction company bankrolled an opulent renovation of Bernard Kerik's apartment hoping for his help dealing with regulators, New Jersey's attorney general alleged yesterday. The stinging complaint goes on to say that the city's former top cop cited the Fifth Amendment at least nine times when investigators asked about the allegedly mobbed-up firm and the 1999 rehab of his Bronx apartment. Kerik, who was then Rudy Giuliani's city correction commissioner, paid just $17,800 of the $200,000 renovation tab, with the construction firm, Interstate Industrial, picking up the rest, according to the complaint. Filed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the complaint is not a criminal case. It seeks only to bar Interstate, based in Clifton, N.J., from Atlantic City casino construction jobs. But the stakes could grow for Kerik, who does no business in the gambling mecca. The city Department of Investigation, which assisted New Jersey investigators, and Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson are conducting criminal investigations into the apartment renovation. Gaming division director Thomas Auriemma said in a release that Interstate owners Frank and Peter DiTommaso "attempted to influence Kerik in the performance, or violation of, his official duties." Officials in New York and New Jersey opened investigations last December after the Daily News revealed Kerik's close ties to Interstate Industrial and raised questions about the renovation. The stories came as Kerik withdrew his nomination to head the federal Homeland Security Department, citing a nanny's documentation problems. After Kerik withdrew his nomination and quit Giuliani's consulting firm, he started his own international security firm. He appeared on NBC and Fox News last week from Jordan, where he was said to be working as an adviser to King Abdullah. His attorney Joseph Tacopina said the New Jersey complaint only asserts that the DiTommasos had an agreement to reimburse the contractor on the job - and not that Kerik was aware of the deal. "If that in fact happened, and I'm not saying it did or didn't, Bernie had no understanding of that," Tacopina said. "Bernie got invoices and paid the invoices he got." Tacopina, who represented Kerik in the sale of the Riverdale apartment, told The News in April that Kerik had paid $170,000 for the apartment and spent up to $65,000 for renovations. The three-bedroom unit sold for $460,000 in 2003, records show. The New Jersey complaint portrays the Kerik-DiTommaso relationship as a fast one based on exchanged favors. Kerik was introduced to the DiTommasos by a friend, Larry Ray, who was best man at Kerik's wedding in November 1998 and helped pay for the reception. A month after Kerik's wedding, Frank DiTommaso hired Ray to a $100,000-a-year job, based on a reference from Kerik, to help allay mob-leery regulators. Soon after, DiTommaso hired Kerik's brother Don to manage a stone yard on Staten Island, at a salary of $85,000. During those months, Kerik was nervous about buying and renovating a larger apartment in the building where he lived, according to the complaint. In the spring and summer of 1999, he wrote numerous E-mails to Ray begging for money because he couldn't afford the apartment and the renovations. The E-mails weren't directly quoted in the complaint but were revealed by The News last year. In them, Kerik wrote he had drained his pension account and couldn't stand to ask his wife's family for money. According to the complaint, the DiTommasos stepped in to save the day. Peter DiTommaso brought in Timothy Woods, a former Interstate employee who had founded his own company, to handle Kerik's renovation, according to the complaint. Woods did not return a call yesterday. In a series of damning accusations, the complaint states that, in exchange, Kerik helped Interstate. The DiTommasos had been seeking a license to work in Atlantic City for years, and were facing questions about alleged mob influences from the city Trade Waste Commission. On their behalf, Kerik met with Raymond Casey, a cousin of Giuliani's who was then a high-ranking official at the commission, the complaint says. And in September 1999, Kerik arranged a meeting between Ray and detectives from the trade commission in his Correction Department office to discuss Interstate, according to the complaint. Interstate's attorney Thomas Durkin denied any mob link and said the DiTommasos' only involvement in the renovation was recommending an architect and Woods, a longtime friend, to Kerik. He insisted the DiTommasos didn't pay for the renovation. Kerik Took the Fifth By Philip Messing New York Post November 16, 2005 Former top cop Bernard Kerik took the Fifth Amendment on nine key matters regarding his ties to two mob-connected brothers, officials charged yesterday. Kerik refused to cooperate with the New Jersey investigation of a construction firm, whose alleged connection to the Gambino crime family was revealed after Kerik's sudden withdrawal last year as President Bush's nominee for U.S. Homeland Security czar. BERNARD KERIK Quizzed in "mob" case.                   Kerik, under subpoena, reluctantly took the Fifth, Photo: Getty Images                        at the insistence of his lawyer, Joseph Tacopina,  the lawyer said. "It was like wrestling a 500-pound bear to get him not to answer those questions," Tacopina told The Post. He said Kerik was being questioned about events going back to 1998 and if his memory failed to provide full answers, a prosecutor might have concluded he was being evasive. Kerik's testimony was part of a probe by New Jersey's Division of Gaming Enforcement, which yesterday asked the state's Casino Control Commission to revoke the casino service-industry license of Interstate Industrial Corp. The investigators cited evidence that the company's owners, Frank and Peter DiTommaso, had mob ties going back to the 1980s and had lied about their relationship to Kerik. Their complaint, filed yesterday, said the DiTomassos gave false testimony about the 1999 renovation of a Bronx apartment owned by Kerik while he was commissioner of the city's Department of Correction. According to the complaint, Peter DiTommaso brokered a deal under which Kerik got $200,000 worth of renovations to the apartment but paid only $17,800 of it. The contractor who did the work was allegedly reimbursed for the balance by the DiTommasos. Kerik was questioned by the gaming investigators in September. He refused to answer questions about whether Frank DiTommaso ever gave him money or anything of value on behalf of Interstate. Kerik also refused to answer some questions about former Interstate employee Lawrence Ray, who allegedly introduced Kerik to Frank DiTommaso. The ex-commissioner wouldn't even confirm the authenticity of his e-mails to Ray, the best man at his wedding. Ray later pleaded guilty to stock-fraud conspiracy.

Probe Twist: Cash & Bern Kerik Hit up Pal for Apt. By Russ Buettner New York Daily News May 8, 2005 Bernard Kerik Bernard Kerik was desperately worried about being able to afford a Bronx apartment that is now at the center of a bribery investigation involving the former NYPD boss, his E-mails show. Kerik repeatedly asked a friend for money to help buy the Riverdale co-op in the summer of 1999, saying he felt like a "schmuck" because he didn't have cash for closing costs, let alone the remodeling needed to make it "livable." Despite saying he was broke, Kerik managed an overhaul that included top-of-the-line appliances, a granite kitchen counter and three new marble bathrooms, including one with a Jacuzzi, an appraiser noted. Kerik's attorney says he paid $170,000 for the apartment and up to $65,000 for renovations. Somehow, though, the three-bedroom unit sold 3-1/2 years later for $460,000, records show. Since a Daily News story in December, investigators have zeroed in on whether the apartment was part of a bribery scheme in which Kerik helped a city contractor, Interstate Industrial, appease regulators in exchange for the renovations. The story was published as Kerik withdrew his nomination to head the federal Department of Homeland Security, citing a nanny's documentation problems. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement in March subpoenaed records from Kerik related to the apartment and Interstate, noting that a bribe, if proven, would make Interstate ineligible to build casinos. Kerik recently agreed to be deposed. The city Department of Investigation is probing similar issues. Kerik's attorney, Joseph Tacopina, said Kerik hired a company not affiliated with Interstate for the renovations. He has refused to disclose the name until the investigations end. When he bought the apartment, Kerik was the city's correction commissioner. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the same building, at 679 W. 239th St., with his pregnant wife, Hala. From April through July 1999, Kerik wrote six E-mails to a close friend, Lawrence Ray, asking for money to help with the apartment. Ray was then working for Interstate, a job Kerik helped him get with a positive reference. Ray last year provided the E-mails to The News, and later to investigators. Tacopina has called the purchase of the apartment a "modest" cost to Kerik at $170,000. But in the E-mails, Kerik described himself as too worried to sleep and demeaned by having to beg for cash. He said he had drained his pension of available funds and couldn't bear to ask his wife's family for money. "I've got to make sure we can do the renovations, mostly, the new kitchen and the two small bath rooms, or else I can't do this because it's not livable as is," he wrote on April 29, 1999. Kerik added that because of his bad credit, the bank had demanded a bigger down payment, money "that I would have used to fix it up." His despair only rose. "I'm walking on eggshells until this apartment is done," he wrote on July 24, 1999. "I had to beg, borrow and [humiliate myself] for the down payment and I'm still [sweating] over the $5,000 I need for closing if it happens. Then the renovations." But the renovations happened. Tacopina has described them as minor, costing Kerik $50,000 to $65,000. But advertisements and an appraisal done after Kerik put it on the market in December 2001 sound closer to magnificent. John Edwards Real Estate, Kerik's agent, raved, "Renovated kitchen with a granite countertop, modern appliances, and marble baths. ... A Gem!" A Foxtons ad mentioned the "elegant marble foyer." Edwards listed it at $775,000 - more than three times what Kerik said he invested. Tacopina said Edwards determined the price. Edwards referred questions to Kerik. Edwards advertised the apartment for 14 months, dropping the price to $547,000 when it was last listed, in February 2003. Kerik signed a contract to sell it for $460,000 in April 2003, according to court records filed by the buyer. Oddly, buyers Kay and Gerald Nugent got the money for the purchase from a $3.75 million legal settlement with the city, stemming from Nugent's 1996 auto accident with a police cruiser.   Kerik Deal Called Possible Bribe Scheme By Russ Buettner New York Daily News April 12, 2005 Former NYPD boss Bernard Kerik used a city contractor suspected of mob ties to renovate his Bronx apartment in 1999, according to information received by New Jersey gaming officials. The state's Division of Gaming Enforcement said in legal papers filed yesterday that the 1999 renovation may have been part of a bribery scheme in which Kerik helped the company, Interstate Industrial, deal with regulatory agencies. At the time of the renovation, Kerik ran the city's jails. Interstate faced losing $85 million in city contracts and the opportunity to build in Atlantic City due to investigations into its mob ties. "The commission by Interstate or its qualifiers of any acts which would constitute the offenses of bribery and corrupt influence ... would constitute a basis for revocation of Interstate's license," division attorneys wrote. The city later suspended the contracts. Last summer, Interstate owners Frank and Peter DiTomasso won a license to build in Atlantic City. The gaming division is appealing the decision. Kerik attorney Joseph Tacopina denied the allegation, but declined to say who did the renovation pending the conclusion of current investigations. "There is a company that has nothing to do with Frank DiTomasso or any of his companies who did the renovations. Period, end of story," Tacopina said. The division's filings yesterday noted a series of Daily News articles in December that revealed Kerik's ties to Interstate and raised questions about the renovation. The articles also led the city Department of Investigation to probe Kerik. Tacopina said Kerik would testify to a more narrow subpoena. But the gaming division, a wing of the state's attorney general office, questioned that. "Like some kind of Zen witness, Kerik continually proclaims his willingness to testify, at the same time he refuses to do so," division lawyers wrote.

Kerik's Royalties Shocker
Gets 75g for 9/11 Book

By Paul D. Colford and Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
March 14, 2005

Former top cop Bernard Kerik, pictured last Monday at Planet Hollywood, has so far made $75,954.52 in royalties from "In the Line of Duty," (below)which was published to raise money for families of heroes killed on 9/11.   Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in royalties from a book published to raise money for the families of heroes killed on Sept. 11, 2001, the Daily News has learned. Kerik contributed an 11-sentence foreword to the book of photographs, titled "In the Line of Duty," in which he praised police and firefighters who "desperately fought and struggled and bled and died in a noble effort." "Theirs is a story beyond words; a story of bravery, fidelity and sacrifice; a story that must never be forgotten," Kerik wrote. Kerik's royalties on the book have so far totaled $75,954.52, sources told The News. The deal came about when Kerik was engaged in a torrid year-long affair with the book's publisher, Judith Regan, as The News revealed in December. In contrast, former Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, who also wrote an introduction to the book, accepted no money. Von Essen directed ReganBooks to include his payment in its charitable donation, according to the publisher's spokesman. "Von Essen did not want to get paid, and in lieu of getting paid he wanted the money donated to charity," said Paul Crichton, a ReganBooks spokesman. Crichton confirmed Kerik was paid, but declined to discuss the amount, citing company policy. Asked about the royalties, Kerik spokesman Robert Leonard said the city's former top cop has donated far more to charity since late 2001. Leonard said Kerik paid income taxes on the royalties and has donated $150,000 to charitable causes, including $120,000 to Sept. 11-related charities and $50,000 to groups that help the families of cops and firefighters. Leonard declined to provide documents that would substantiate the numbers. The book's cover states: "Publisher's profits will be donated to the New York Police & Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund," which was created in 1985 by former New York Met great Rusty Staub. Indeed, ReganBooks has donated some $500,000 to the charity, and continues to send checks and detailed accounting statements every six months, said the charity's treasurer, David Golush. "Tom Von Essen was our point person on that," Golush said. "Von Essen is the one who called me up and said is it all right if [the charity] gets the profits from the book." Von Essen serves on the charity's board of directors. Golush said he didn't know Kerik had received royalties. "That's news to me, news to everyone," Golush said. Gene Russianoff, director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, said the proceeds from the photo book should have gone straight to the charity. "I'm sure when they look at the book, people think they are helping out the department," Russianoff said. The book, a collection of photographs at Ground Zero, spent four weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Kerik's royalty checks were mailed to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm in the name of Gryphon Strategic Group, a Delaware-based entity that Kerik created. Kerik resigned from Giuliani's firm in December, amid the controversy that enveloped him after he withdrew his nomination as President Bush's homeland security secretary. The News reported that Kerik used a secret apartment overlooking Ground Zero to carry on extramarital affairs with Regan and a female correction officer in the weeks after the terrorist attacks. The News also revealed that Kerik had helped his brother and a close friend get jobs with a city contractor who was battling allegations that his company was mob controlled. The city Department of Investigation is probing the allegations

2 Officers on Security OT the Day Kerik Wed

By John Marzulli
New York Daily News
February 10, 2005

At least two city Correction Department officers received overtime for "executive protection" on the day of former Commissioner Bernard Kerik's lavish wedding, the Daily News has learned.

Department spokesman Tom Antenen said a continuing search for records turned up documents that itemize the reasons for overtime for 25 of the 32 Emergency Service Unit officers on the day in question in 1998.

Two ESU officers clocked a total of 17 hours of overtime for "executive protection," according to the documents. Nineteen officers got a total of 40 hours of overtime for "standby" duty, although it's unclear what that covers.

City investigators are looking into whether Kerik deployed on-duty officers for security at his reception, a charge he has repeatedly denied.

The documents were the second batch released in response to a Freedom of Information request by The News.

Last month, jail officials released payroll records that showed 32 ESU members worked overtime the day of the wedding. But those records did not indicate the reason for the overtime, and officials said they have been unable to locate the original overtime sheets.

The general manager of the catering house where the wedding was held has told The News that 15 to 20 security people were at the reception.

Through a spokesman, Kerik again denied any wrongdoing.

"This is an event that took place over six years ago, and Commissioner Kerik's recollection is that no members of his security detail were on department time or overtime that day," spokesman Robert Leonard said yesterday.

Kerik withdrew his nomination as federal homeland security secretary late last year amid a blizzard of questions about his finances, ethical lapses at the Correction Department and the NYPD, and charges of infidelity.

Kerik Parties at Rudy Gala
President Bush's Inaugural Address

By Ian Bishop and Vincent Morris
New York Post
January 21, 2005

WASHINGTON — Disgraced Bernard Kerik wasn't slinking in the shadows at the inauguration yesterday — he mingled with guests at pal Rudy Giuliani's parade-watching party.

Kerik, who attended with his fur-clad wife, Hala, said he was proud to be part of the celebration — even though his past forced him to turn down the post of Homeland Security secretary.

"With all the criticism and attacks [leveled at me], nothing diminishes the honor, faith and trust the president had in me," Kerik told The Post.

Giuliani showed up for his bash at the Hotel Washington decked out in black cowboy boots presented to him the night before by Texas Republicans at their ball.

Gov. Pataki hosted a separate inaugural party. Both New

Shot-down Kerik Shows He's up for a Big Bash

By Celeste Katz
New York Daily News
January 21, 2005

WASHINGTON - His nomination to head Homeland Security went down in the flames of tawdry scandal, but Bernard Kerik still came to Washington and held his head high.

It didn't hurt that New York's former top cop was publicly welcomed - and praised - yesterday by his former boss, Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Kerik is "a very, very, very good man," said America's mayor, who arrived to wild applause outside the historic Hotel Washington, where his consulting firm held a parade-watching bash. "He's gone through a difficult time, but he's a person who's done a tremendous amount to help my city, my country," said Giuliani, who credits Kerik with helping him escape a building on Sept. 11, 2001, as the World Trade Center collapsed.

Also sticking by her man yesterday was Kerik's wife, Hala Matli.

"It's a real honor to be here, and we're here to show our support for the President," Kerik said in brief remarks.

Kerik embarrassed President Bush last month when he told White House vetters he had no skeletons in his closet but it turned out he did have an illegal nanny and two ex-mistresses. He also resigned his position with Giuliani Partners after the Daily News revealed a series of questionable financial dealings.

The implosion tainted the image of his major booster, Giuliani, whom many consider a potential presidential candidate in 2008.

With his wife, Judith Nathan, at his side, Giuliani declined to discuss his ambitions yesterday. "I don't think you think four years ahead at a moment like this," he said.

But that didn't stop the speculation. While Giuliani presided over a small shindig for 150, Gov. Pataki, another moderate New York Republican with White House ambitions, held a blowout at the nearby ESPN Zone for nearly a thousand pals and boosters, including former Sen. Al D'Amato.

Pataki missed his own party but hit the publicity jackpot yesterday when he was shown at Bush's side on the reviewing stand on broadcast and cable news networks.

D'Amato was asked if he expects to see Pataki taking the oath of office in four years.

"Well, let's hope," he said. "A lot of people sell him short."

Union Slap over Kerik Flap

By Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
January 21, 2005

A city Correction Department union formally chided the agency's inspector general for his failure to catch former Commissioner Bernard Kerik's alleged ethical breaches.

Sydney Schwartzbaum, president of the Assistant Deputy Wardens/Deputy Wardens Association, said the vote of no confidence on Wednesday night showed his members' blamed the inspector general, Michael Caruso, for protecting Kerik and punishing those who challenged him.

"Mike Caruso has failed miserably as the inspector general," said Schwartzbaum. "The watchdog has consistently been the lap dog."

As Kerik's nomination for homeland security czar imploded last month, the Daily News revealed that he had failed to report gifts, had become entangled with a company suspected of mob ties and had carried on two simultaneous extramarital affairs in a secret apartment.

Emily Gest, a spokeswoman for the city Department of Investigation, said Caruso had recused himself from the Kerik probe "out of an abundance of caution."

Kerik's Surprise Invite to Bush Inauguration

By Murray Weiss and Deborah Orin
New York Post
January 18, 2005

EXCLUSIVE - Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik — whose nomination as President Bush's homeland-security chief collapsed in a scandal storm — has been invited to the inauguration and is expected to attend, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

Kerik was invited to Bush's swearing-in on Thursday, to the inaugural parade and to an inaugural ball, the sources said.

A senior Republican strategist said Kerik deserves the invites for going to Iraq at Bush's request to help rebuild its police force and working all-out for the president's re-election.

"He was somebody who worked tirelessly to re-elect the president, went above and beyond the call," the strategist said.

"It would be wonderful if he could come and join in the inaugural festivities because he worked so hard to reelect the president."

Kerik also has been invited to a private inaugural party being hosted by his ex-boss, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani Partners, but it is not known if he will attend, said Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel.

All through the 2004 campaign, Kerik was Bush's go-to guy whenever Democrat John Kerry challenged the president over Iraq.

Kerik spoke out in favor of Bush's policies, and offered upbeat assessments of progress in Iraq and chilling accounts of Saddam Hussein's brutality.

Kerik Probers Eye Nups Bash
Check If Jailers Paid to Stand Guard

By Russ Buettner
and John Marzulli
New York Daily News
January 15, 2005

The city's probe into former NYPD top cop Bernard Kerik has led to the seizure of financial records from his 1998 wedding.

Investigators are zeroing in on whether Kerik used correction officers for security at his New Jersey wedding reception - paying for them with taxpayer money.

Kerik, who was city Correction Commissioner at the time, denies bringing in guards for the lavish affair, his lawyer and his spokesman insisted yesterday.

But the general manager of The Chanticler catering hall in Short Hills, N.J., told The News yesterday that Kerik had 15 to 20 "security people" on hand - and that all of them were served food.

"I fed them, so I charged him," said Andy Afxentiou. "Where they came from, I do not know."

One city official who attended the reception said 10 to 20 members of the Department of Correction emergency service unit staffed the security detail. Another source familiar with the detail said officers also ferried guests to the catering hall.

Afxentiou said last week two detectives from the city Department of Investigation showed up at The Chanticler and were given access to the file on Kerik's wedding. They also questioned Afxentiou about the security that day.

"They asked if the security people were in uniform or plainclothes," he said. "They wanted to see the contract. How he [Kerik] paid. I said, 'Here is the file.'"

He said the detectives copied the entire file - even the Kerik wedding menu.

Afxentiou recalled that members of the security detail wore suits and earpieces. "They were just standing around by the exits," he said.

At least a day before the wedding, an advance security team came by to meet the catering staff and look at the layout of the place, he said.

Kerik denies Afxentiou's claim that he was billed for guards' food - and insists there was no security detail.

"Absolutely no Department of Correction employee worked his wedding," said Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina. "Nobody was paid by New York City to be at that wedding."

Kerik spokesman Robert Leonard added that Kerik's three bodyguards were invited to the wedding as guests and they were off duty.

The News filed a Freedom of Information request seeking overtime records for the Correction Department's emergency service unit on the day of the wedding.

But the city's reply was incomplete.

The department released payroll records for 32 officers who put in for over 200 hours of overtime that day - but the actual overtime slips that mention the reason for the overtime could not be found.

Asked whether anyone from the Correction Department worked at Kerik's wedding or received overtime, spokesman Thomas Antenen declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Department of Investigation also declined to comment.

Kerik withdrew his nomination for U.S. homeland security secretary in December after The News disclosed ethical lapses, including $10,000 that Kerik glommed from two cronies to pay for his wedding.

The scandal also forced him to resign from Giuliani Partners.

                Kerik Is Left With Miramax Book Deal

New York Daily News
January 14, 2005

See below: Mireille Guiliano, author of ... ... 'French Women Don't Get Fat.' When Bernard Kerik pulled his nomination to become homeland security czar, New York's former top cop mentioned plans to "finish my second book, which is now under way." Sources have now told the Daily News Kerik has a deal with Miramax Books, though its representatives have said they can't confirm if the company is in business with him. It could all add up to limbo for the project. "Well before his nomination, he absolutely had a second book under way," Joseph Tacopina, Kerik's lawyer, told The News yesterday. "He met with writers and I negotiated a contract," Tacopina added, declining to name the publisher. A deal with Miramax - said to be for a book on leadership - would be especially interesting for two reasons, not counting the challenge of marketing an author whom one publisher characterized as "a pariah," based on embarrassing revelations in the News. For one thing, Kerik's first book, the memoir "The Lost Son," was published in 2001 by ReganBooks. Namesake Judith Regan had an affair with Kerik that same year, The News found. Moreover, Kerik's former business partner, Rudy Giuliani, did well - for himself and Miramax - with his own "Leadership," now in paperback. A Miramax Films spokesman said its plan to do a movie drawn from "The Lost Son" is still "in development."

City Tries to Ko Jail Suit Against Kerik

By Carl Campanile
New York Post
January 14, 2005

The city is making a last-ditch attempt to scuttle an explosive civil-rights trial facing Bernard Kerik that would force him to revisit the embarrassing controversy over his sex life.

The case dates back to Kerik's days as correction commissioner. Former city prison warden Eric DeRavin charges that Kerik denied him numerous promotions because DeRavin clashed with an officer, Janet Pinero, whom Kerik had dated.

Kerik admitted the relationship with Pinero during a deposition last month, but denied he had retaliated against DeRavin.

DeRavin's lawyer, Greg Lisi, said he will call Pinero and HarperCollins book publisher Judith Regan — to whom Kerik also has been linked romantically — to testify at his trial. Reports said the married Kerik had maintained simultaneous relations with both women, which he has denied.

One insider said DeRavin offered to settle the case with the city for about $400,000. The city refused.

"We felt the demand was unreasonable," city assistant Corporation Counsel Diana Voight said during a pretrial hearing before Manhattan federal Magistrate Kevin Fox.

Voight said she will file a motion to have the case dismissed.

Stand Tall, Embattled Bernie Sez

By Monica Alonzo
New York Daily News
January 11, 2005

PHOENIX - An unrepentant Bernard Kerik urged a crowd yesterday to "ignore the critics" and remember "only the strong survive" in his first speech since his nomination as terror boss tanked amid growing scandal.

"Ignore the press. Don't cower to criticism," Kerik told 1,800 correction officials.

The NYPD's former top cop - still reeling from charges he cheated on his wife in simultaneous affairs with two women and had ties to a mob-linked contracting firm - cast himself as a rags-to-riches American champ.

"I'm 49 years old and I've been fighting to get where I'm at since I was about 3," Kerik told members of the American Correctional Association.

"I've learned along the way two things," Kerik said. "Only the strong survive, and good will prevail over evil."

Kerik, who ran the city's jails before heading the NYPD, accepted the speaking invitation in September - long before he pulled his nomination as President Bush's homeland security czar Dec. 10, citing concerns about an illegal nanny.

Kerik's tenure as a city employee has come under investigation by three city agencies, including the NYPD, which is looking into possible abuse of department-issued credit cards while he was in charge.

But Kerik insisted yesterday he hasn't lost his taste for public service.

He said several people have asked him, "Why would you, why would anybody, accept a job in public service?"

He answered: "Because it's the right thing to do."

The association covered Kerik's travel expenses, but he was not paid for the 30-minute speech, a spokesman for the group said.


                                             Kerik up for a Fight

By David K. Li
New York Post
January 11, 2005

PHOENIX — Disgraced former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik vowed yesterday that a string of recent scandals won't bring him down — because "only the strong survive."

In his first public event since he resigned last month from Giuliani Partners in the wake of an embarrassing debacle over his nomination as U.S. Homeland Security chief, Kerik was unapologetic during a 25-minute speech to an association of corrections officers.

"I'm 49 years old. I've had to fight to get where I'm at since I was about 3," Kerik told the American Correctional Association conference. "I've learned along the way two things, trite as they may sound: that only the strong survive, and good will prevail over evil."

A defiant Kerik added, "You gotta be strong, you gotta do your job you were sworn to do and take the challenge. Just do your best, ignore the critics, ignore the press."

After the speech, Kerik declined to discuss most of the scandals that have dogged him since he withdrew his nomination.

Investigators are looking into Kerik's possible ties to mob-linked businessmen, and former subordinates have filed damaging accusations that deride his leadership. It's believed that details of Kerik's steamy relationship with publishing titan Judith Regan could emerge from a lawsuit filed by a former New York corrections official.

In a brief interview with The Post, Kerik took a shot at his critics and the media. "When you reach the level of public service that I have, there are going to be critics out there," Kerik said. "The press has a job to do. I just wish that they would do it fairly."

Kerik did defend himself against an NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau probe of credit-card use by undercover officers, saying there's no way he could have known about such abuse.

"I have no idea [if there was misuse]," Kerik said. "It's my understanding that the credit cards are issued by a sergeant, who reports to a lieutenant, who reports to a captain, who reports to a bureau chief."

Kerik's recent troubles could not be ignored, even before a friendly audience. The ACA's executive director, James Gondles, defended his pal during introductory remarks, saying Kerik is facing "new challenges . . . That, too, shall pass."

Kerik Is Jail Group Keynoter

By Heidi Singer
New York Post
January 9, 2005

The scandals dogging Bernard Kerik won't stop the city's former top cop from telling "tales of leadership, valor and determination" at a major jails conference tomorrow.

Although his leadership abilities are now being called into question, the disgraced former nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security will be a keynote speaker at the American Correctional Association's conference in Phoenix.

"Mr. Kerik's tales of leadership, valor and determination will serve as motivation for hundreds of attendees in reaching their desired goals," the association says on its Web site.

Organizers of the get-together for jail administrators from across the country say they invited Kerik to speak in September 2003, when his reputation was still sterling.

"We felt like at that point, it would have been, shall we say, a bit uncomfortable to rescind the invitation," said ACA President Gwendolin Chunn.

She said Kerik is expected to speak about the terrorist threat to the country's jails and prisons — a topic that has nothing to do with the corruption and romantic scandals that have cropped up in the past few weeks.

Kerik has also waived his traditional speaking fee, as he always does for law-enforcement groups, said his lawyer, Joseph Tacopina.

Meanwhile, NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating the use of department-issued credit cards given to undercover cops during Kerik's tenure as police commissioner, sources told The Post.

Probers in December seized records and computers at the Confidential Identification Section, which issues undercover aliases and matching ID, sources said.

Kerik is not the object of the probe, the sources said.

             Police Review Accounts Used in Kerik Years

By William K. Rashbaum
The New York Times
January 9, 2005

The Police Department is reviewing credit card accounts used in sensitive investigations in an effort to determine whether they were misused when Bernard B. Kerik was police commissioner, according to officials involved in the inquiry.

The exhaustive review, which is being conducted by a unit in the Internal Affairs Bureau that handles the department's most sensitive internal inquiries, has as yet uncovered no evidence of improprieties, according to one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry.

The review began shortly after Christmas, after weeks of news reports detailing accusations of financial improprieties and ethical lapses involving Mr. Kerik after the withdrawal of his nomination to be the secretary of homeland security.

The department undertook the review after learning from a New York Times reporter that a department official had raised questions about the use of the accounts, suggesting that some of the spending was suspect.

Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer for Mr. Kerik, scoffed at the suggestion of financial improprieties involving such accounts during Mr. Kerik's tenure as police commissioner, saying that the spending of any such city funds undergoes intensive review.

"One thing the city has is checks and balances - it's not like some private corporation - you don't just slide personal things through city accounts," he said. "I think it's wholly impossible to go under the radar screen. If there are any improprieties, the Finance Department checks every dime that's spent - there is no way that there are any improprieties."

Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman, declined to answer questions about the matter.

Investigators from the Internal Affairs unit, known as Group 1, started taking records and computers from the department's Confidential Identification Section nearly two weeks ago to begin reviewing the accounts, several officials said.

The accounts under scrutiny are used by the Organized Crime Control Bureau - which oversees the Narcotics Division - the Detective Bureau and the Intelligence Division, one of the officials said.

They are used for a range of purposes, from paying rent on undercover apartments to payments to confidential informants and credit charges for meals or hotels during an investigation, officials said. The accounts enable investigative units to spend money outside the normal purchasing process, the use of which could reveal the existence of an ongoing investigation.

Credit Cards in Kerik Mess
Probe Charges While He Was the Commish

By Patrice O'shaughnessy
New York Daily News
December 9, 2005
 

Bernard Kerik is sworn in as police commissioner by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1998. An internal NYPD investigation has been launched into possible abuse of department-issued credit cards while Bernard Kerik was police commissioner, the Daily News has learned. Investigators are poring through Police Headquarters computer data for evidence. Over the Christmas holiday weekend, detectives from the Internal Affairs Bureau seized all the computers from the NYPD office that issues credit cards, Social Security cards, driver's licenses and employment IDs under aliases to undercover cops, law enforcement sources said. The sources say the investigators are studying how the credit cards were used and what they bought from August 2000 to Dec. 31, 2001, while Kerik was police commissioner. The inquiry marks the third by a city agency involving Kerik's tenure as a city commissioner. Since Dec. 10, when Kerik withdrew his nomination for U.S. secretary of homeland security citing concerns over an illegal nanny, The News has disclosed ethical lapses involving two simultaneous extramarital affairs, his ties to a mob-linked contracting firm, gifts he failed to disclose while working for the city and questions on renovations to his Riverdale, Bronx, apartment. As the scandal widened, Kerik quit his lucrative partnership with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm. The IAB investigators took the equipment from the Confidential Identification section, a small, out-of-the-way office in the Organized Crime Control Bureau on the 12th floor of 1 Police Plaza. The veteran sergeant who runs the office, Ralph Chartier, was Kerik's supervisor in the Midtown South Precinct when the former police commissioner was a young cop there in the late 1980s. Chartier has run the office since at least 1997. Sources said that shortly after Kerik left office, allegations surfaced regarding misuse of the secret credit cards by several detectives who were close to the commissioner. "If there were allegations back then, I assume they were investigated back then. I can only speculate on the timing of this," said Kerik's attorney, Joseph Tacopina. "We welcome any investigation, because it will separate the smoke and inaccuracies from the facts." NYPD spokesman Paul Browne declined comment on the matter. The bills incurred by the various undercover investigators are paid by their divisions - narcotics, for example - and the confidential ID office handles the paperwork. The limit for most of the cards is between $2,000 and $4,000. While not directly implicated in the credit-card probe, Kerik is the focus of probes by the city Department of Investigation and the Bronx district attorney's office. The News disclosed that while he was city correction commissioner, Kerik broke rules on accepting gifts and offered favors to a mob-linked contractor that had hired his brother, Don. DOI noted that Kerik failed to file a background form when he was appointed police commissioner in 2000, though he had filed one when named correction commissioner two years before that. Under current rules, all commissioners and other high-ranking officials must undergo background checks. The Bronx district attorney is gathering information about Kerik's purchase and remodeling of two Riverdale apartments in 1999, while he was jails chief. The News reported that the apartments were combined and extensively renovated under building permits filed by a recently indicted contractor and a soon-to-be-indicted engineer. Tacopina has said the building hired the contractor and engineer. The News disclosed yesterday that book publisher Judith Regan might be forced to testify about an affair she had with the married Kerik in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001. At the time, Kerik was also involved with correction officer Jeannette Pinero, The News has reported. Regan's testimony is being sought in a suit filed by a former Correction Department official who claims he was denied a promotion because he disciplined Pinero.

Chief Kerik Lover Served
Judge Told News Probe Shows Bernie
ex Can Provide Answers in Suit Against City

By Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
January 8, 2005

Judith Regan, pictured in September, was served with a subpoena Tuesday at her book-publishing office by lawyer for jailer who is suing city. Media titan Judith Regan could be forced to testify about illicit trysts she had with former top cop Bernard Kerik in a secret Battery Park City apartment. The shocking development in a lawsuit against the city came about because the Daily News revealed last month that Kerik once carried on simultaneous extramarital affairs with Regan, who published his memoir, and another woman, Correction Officer Jeannette Pinero. As Kerik's nomination to become homeland security czar imploded last month, The News reported that he had separate liaisons with Regan and Pinero at the apartment in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001. Just days before The News story was published, Kerik and Pinero had both testified that their romantic affair ended in late 1996, before Kerik met his current wife and while Pinero was separated from her husband. The timeline could prove crucial to allegations in the lawsuit. Eric DeRavin 3rd alleges that Kerik denied him a promotion in 1998 from the rank of assistant deputy warden because he had disciplined Pinero. DeRavin's attorney, Gregory Lisi, argued in a letter to the judge in the case, U.S. Magistrate Kevin Fox, that The News story showed Regan could establish that Kerik still had a motive to retaliate against DeRavin in 1998. "Your article was the main piece of evidence that I gave to the judge," Lisi told The News. Lisi said he served Regan with a subpoena at her book-publishing office on Tuesday. He added that Regan's testimony could show Kerik and Pinero were not truthful under oath. Last month, Fox gave Pinero and Kerik 30 days to "review and, where necessary, correct" transcripts of their testimony. He denied Lisi's request to reopen the discovery case so he could depose Regan, but the lawyer has asked him to reconsider. On Thursday, city attorneys wrote a letter to Fox arguing that Regan's testimony could have no bearing on the case. City attorney Diana Goell Voigt said Lisi "relies solely on inadmissable, unsubstantiated newspaper articles to assert that Judith Regan may have knowledge of the relationship between" Kerik and Pinero. City attorneys have argued that DeRavin's case is frivolous and intended only to embarrass Kerik. The Regan subpoena comes as city investigators and the Bronx district attorney's office explore ethical breaches by Kerik that were first reported in The News. The apartment overlooking Ground Zero had been donated by its owners, the Millstein real estate family, to give rescue workers a place to rest, but Kerik adopted it for his personal use, sources told The News. During one visit to the love nest, Pinero found a note Regan had left for Kerik, sources with intimate knowledge of the affairs told The News. The two "other women" later spoke on the phone, the sources said. Regan's spokeswoman did not return a call yesterday. The Kerik-Regan relationship first drew attention in 2001, when Kerik dispatched detectives to question employees of Fox News whom Regan suspected of stealing her cell phone and jewelry from a makeup room. Kerik, 49, had long denied an affair with the raven-haired Regan. But after the News story, he acknowledged a "very close relationship." The results of a six-month News investigation showed Kerik had failed to report thousands of dollars in gifts, and that he had assisted a company long suspected of mob ties after the firm hired his brother and a close friend. The News also reported that in 1999, when Kerik was having trouble meeting financial obligations, he bought two Riverdale, Bronx, apartments that were combined into one during an extensive renovation. The Bronx district attorney has opened a preliminary examination of the apartment. Kerik's affair with Pinero already has cost taxpayers. In 2003, the city paid $250,000 to settle another suit claiming he had retaliated against an officer who crossed Pinero. Pinero has since reunited with her husband and the father of their three children.

Pol Rips Kerik 'Profiling'

Rich Calder
New York Post
January 7, 2005

A city councilman charged yesterday that "racial profiling" by Bernard Kerik and Rudy Giuliani in the late 1990s led to more than 100 black correction officers being arrested or fired for breaking tax rules, and he called for a state investigation.

Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn also alleged during a City Hall press conference that many white correction officers broke the same tax laws but were not penalized.

Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, called the allegations "laughable."

Sunny Mindell, Giuliani's spokeswoman, called the charges "baseless."

Eye on Kerik 'Graft'

By Kati Cornell Smith and Brad Hamilton
New York Post
January 2, 2005

The FBI is weighing a corruption investigation of embattled ex-top cop Bernard Kerik, The Post has learned.

Probers are eyeing Kerik's close friendship with mob-linked Wall Street securities trader Lawrence Ray, sources familiar with the matter said.

Ray pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2001 after being indicted with 18 others, some high-level mobsters, in a $41 million pump-and-dump stock fraud. He then had a falling-out with Kerik over the case.

Investigators are also looking to dig into the millions Kerik reaped through his ownership interest in a company that makes stun guns, the sources said.

The possible FBI probe is the latest headache for Kerik, who withdrew from consideration for Homeland Security secretary after he admitted he had not paid taxes on behalf of his illegal-immigrant nanny.

But it's not the first time the feds have considered going after Kerik, sources said.

Agents considered a probe of Kerik back in 2000 — the year he moved from head of the Correction Department to become police commissioner — after Ray began giving information to the FBI on the stock swindle.

What caught their attention was that Ray had introduced Kerik to the head of an allegedly mob-linked construction company in New Jersey, Interstate Industrial.

Interstate owner Frank DiTomasso eventually hired Ray and Kerik's brother Don to help convince authorities the firm wasn't controlled by the mob — and protect $100 million worth of contracts with the city.

No investigation into Kerik was launched at the time and the matter was dropped.

But the feds' interest was recently rekindled after they learned Ray bankrolled Kerik's 1998 wedding —— kicking in with another pal nearly $10,000 for the reception —— and forked over another $7,000 in additional gifts.

"A guy in Kerik's position should not be accepting those kinds of gifts," said one source familiar with the FBI's concerns.

Another area of suspicion for the feds is the $6.2 million profit Kerik made from exercising his stock options in Taser International, which sold stun guns to the Department of Homeland Security before Kerik was nominated to head the agency, sources said.

Kerik, who worked as a consultant to the firm while police chief, remains on Taser's board of directors.

He told the White House he planned to sever his relationship with the company if his nomination had been confirmed.

Kerik is currently being probed by the city Department of Investigation and the Bronx District Attorney's Office.

Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, and spokesman Alex Dudley could not be reached for comment.

Kerik's 'Dept. Of Corruption'

By Brad Hamilton and Rich Calder
New York Post
December 26, 2004

A whistleblowing former deputy warden has sent the U.S. Justice Department a 178-page report slamming Bernie Kerik for turning the city Department of Correction into "the Department of Corruption" over the 51/2-year period he worked there.

Terrence Skinner, 43, once a top correction cop who was promoted by Kerik and got plum assignments, said he wrote the report and delivered it to the feds last week to set the record straight on his former boss — and because Kerik was "positioning himself for some future governmental position."

The surfacing of Skinner's bombshell charges is the latest in a series of stunning blows that have hit Kerik since President Bush tapped him to be Homeland Security secretary.

Since withdrawing his nomination over his former nanny's tax and immigration status, Kerik has faced a slew of accusations. They include reports that he carried on extramarital affairs at a apartment overlooking Ground Zero, took gifts that he never reported to the city, and helped a mob-connected company that was seeking city business.

Skinner's report paints Kerik — who became deputy correction commissioner in 1995, was appointed commissioner in 1998, and left the department in August 2000 to head the NYPD — as vindictive and as someone who made his own rules.

"I think power corrupted him," Skinner told The Post. "Kerik and his team became obsessed and arrogant. They thought they were kings."

Skinner details a saber-rattling speech that Kerik, whose career soared after pal Rudy Giuliani took office in 1994, gave after he was appointed first deputy commissioner.

The disturbing speech focused on some recent negative publicity, which Kerik said he would not tolerate.

"He went on to state that if anyone was disloyal to him, he would make their lives miserable," Skinner says in his report.

"He stated that he had been a 'hunter of men' and that he was good at it. He further stated he would hunt down anyone he thought was disloyal to him."

Skinner's charge is backed by the affidavits of two other deputy wardens who had similar recollections of the meeting. Both are included in the report.

The Post also has determined that about 25 Glock pistols that the department bought mysteriously became the property of select top officials and officers between 1999 and 2001.

Skinner's report, delivered to Attorney General John Ashcroft's office in Washington on Thursday, alleges:

* Kerik ordered correction officers to strip-search suspects held on misdemeanor charges —— a violation of a federal court order that led to a $50 million fine against the city.

A federal judge had earlier banned such searches, but Kerik —— then deputy commissioner —— told his men to do them anyway, Skinner claims.

Skinner said he was present when Kerik issued the order to Correction Department brass in a TEAMs meeting —— the department's stat-crunching equivalent to the NYPD's computerized crime-fighting Compstat system.

* That more than $800,000 is still missing from the scandal-scarred Correction Foundation, a little-known outfit headed by Kerik and funded with $1 million in rebates on cigarettes the city bought for Rikers Island inmates from tobacco firms.

It's been documented that $142,000 was skimmed by foundation treasurer Frederick Patrick, who is now serving a year in jail after he used the money to arrange collect phone-sex calls by inmates to his home.

* That a captain allegedly targeted by Kerik for crossing a pal of Kerik's former girlfriend, Officer Jeanette Pinero, received a $250,000 settlement after he sued Kerik and the city.

Then-Capt. Herbert Reed was falsely accused of sexual harassment while working at the Bronx House of Detention. He was cleared and still works for the department.

A second captain has sued the city after allegedly reprimanding Pinero for insubordination. That case is still pending.

Skinner said his report documents how Kerik abused his power.

"When you look at everything he was doing —— that's a conspiracy," said Skinner, who was promoted by Kerik in 2000 and given a series of high-profile assignments before he retired in 2003 after a 20-year career.

Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, ripped Skinner, saying, "He was alleged to have raped a Corrections Department officer, who ended up shooting herself and is now a quadriplegic."

Said department spokesman Tom Antenen of Skinner: "He's a bad guy. He's been trying to sell this for years."

Records show that no rape charges were filed against Skinner, who was never interviewed on the matter and later earned two promotions —— including one under Kerik —— and a handful of awards.

Skinner has denied the rape charge. He says he only heard about the rape charge after a colleague who knew the alleged victim unexpectedly aired it during a promotion review in 1994 that he did not attend.

He demanded an apology, which the department's top lawyer gave him, he says.

Last week, Kerik abruptly resigned from Giuliani's consulting firm, apologizing for a recent string of embarrassing disclosures about his finances and private life.

"The events surrounding my withdrawal have become an unfair and unnecessary distraction to the firm and the important work being done there," Kerik told reporters.

"I am confident that I will be vindicated from any allegation of wrongdoing," Kerik, 49, said.

After leaving the Police Department in 2002, Kerik joined Giuliani as a security consultant for Giuliani Partners. The firm has advised business and government agencies on security, leadership and other issues.

A spokesman for the former police commissioner said afterward that Kerik's decision to step down was his alone.

Giuliani, in a separate press conference, reiterated the same message, saying he agreed with Kerik's decision but was not behind it.

Meanwhile, The Bronx district attorney is probing allegations that Kerik illegally accepted gifts and had a business relationship with the owner of a construction firm suspected of having organized-crime links.

Brewing Scandal over Stunning Gun Giveaway

By Brad Hamilton
New York Post
December 26, 2004

Under Bernie Kerik's watch, about two dozen Glock pistols belonging to the Correction Department were doled out as free personal perks to favored top officials, The Post has learned.

The city, which purchased the Glock 26 firearms for about $500 apiece in the late 1990s, does not customarily sell or give away its guns.

"They made their own rules that we're going to let certain people take them home — which would be OK except you can't give them a firearm to keep," said former deputy warden Terrence Skinner.

Officers in the Correction Department's firearms unit uncovered the discrepancy.

They realized some serial numbers for Glock 26 pistols purchased through the emergency services unit matched serial numbers for "personal protection firearms" that some emergency officers listed on their service record cards, said a source familiar with the gun inventory.

Herbert Reed, an assistant deputy warden, told The Post that a captain in the firearms unit tried to sort out the discrepancy — but was told by a superior to back off, which another source confirmed.

"This is wrong, because they converted taxpayer dollars into their own personal gain," Reed said.

Kerik's former chief of staff, John Picciano — whose resignation last week from Giuliani's consulting firm followed Kerik's by a day — was among those who got the Glocks between 1999 and 2001, Reed said.

Correction Department spokesman Tom Antenen said he would look into the matter.

The Pal Who Busted Bernie
Bizman at the Heart of Betrayals

By Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
December 26, 2004

With his nominationto homeland security czar in tatters, Bernard Kerik recently uttered a few sentences that the best man from his wedding desperately wanted to hear three years ago.

"During my friendship with Mr. Ray, we were extremely close," Kerik said, referring to Lawrence Ray. "I never knew him to be associated with anyone that was involved in organized crime or criminal activity."

Ray, 45, believes those words could have saved him from pleading guilty to a federal conspiracy charge.

Now Ray will likely emerge as a key figure in the various investigations of Kerik.

But Ray did not come forward willingly.

He agreed to speak on the record only after President Bush nominated Kerik to the highly sensitive homeland security job.

"I felt, with everything I have learned, that he would disgrace the country and the office of the President," Ray said.

Kerik withdrew his nomination on Dec. 10, and on Wednesday he resigned from ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm.

Kerik's attorney, Joseph Tacopina, has questioned Ray's credibility because of his felony conviction and because Ray harbors hard feelings over Kerik's refusal to testify on his behalf.

"That was something Larry Ray felt was a betrayal," Tacopina said.

Ray and Kerik were inseparable friends from their meeting in 1995. They hung out in Kerik's offices when he was the city Correction Department boss, worked out together at Chelsea Piers and dined around Manhattan and at LaFontana, an Italian restaurant in New Brunswick, N.J., then owned by a third friend, Carmen Cabell.

During those years, Ray says, Kerik constantly asked for money. It started small, but grew to regular requests for $2,000 or more at a time, he said.

"He was always complaining that his wife bounced a check, that he was a commissioner and it would embarrass him," Ray said. "He was always crying about money."

In 1998, Kerik asked Ray to be best man at his wedding.

"I was the only one who had any money," Ray said. "He just used me."

Ray and Cabell wound up bankrolling much of the reception, as the Daily News has revealed.

Born Lawrence Grecco, he spent his early childhood in Brooklyn and moved to Watchung, N.J., when his mother married Gordon Ray, a telecommunications executive and son of a five-term congressman from Staten Island.

Ray didn't graduate from college, but he worked his way up Wall Street in the mortgage-backed securities field.

By 1998, he lived in a $1 million custom home in Warren, N.J., with his wife and two daughters. He indulged his love of motorcycles, worked as a consultant, held interest in several small construction companies and owned a nightclub in Scotch Plains, N.J.

The month of Kerik's wedding, another figure entered the Ray-Kerik relationship.

Ray had known Frank DiTomasso, owner of Interstate Industrial, a major New Jersey construction company, since the late 1980s.

DiTomasso began venting to Ray about his difficulties convincing New York and New Jersey authorities that his company was not controlled by the mob.

Ray offered to help DiTomasso deal with regulators and said Kerik would vouch for his abilities. DiTomasso called Kerik, and Kerik recommended Ray for the job, according to DiTomasso's sworn testimony.

In late 1998, DiTomasso hired Ray at a salary of $100,000, and then hired Kerik's brother, Don.

Kerik and DiTomasso forged their own relationship. E-mails Ray said he received from Kerik in the spring of 1999 suggest that Kerik was willing to pass along to DiTomasso inside information of the city's investigation of Interstate, along with details of upcoming city contracts.

Ray said he became concerned that favors traded between Kerik and DiTomasso someday could destroy Kerik's law enforcement career. He raised that concern with both.

"After that, I felt like they began shutting me out," Ray said.

The shock of Ray's life came weeks later.

In June 1999, prosecutors told Ray that he had held back information in an investigation of a massive mob-run stock swindle.

After Ray and 18 others were indicted in March 2000, Kerik dropped his longtime benefactor. Ray, who had cooperated with investigators for three years, was charged with conspiring to obtain a bond for a mob front company.

Ray fired two attorneys and ran low on money. A single E-mail exchange captures the betrayal Ray said he felt.

On Nov. 14, 2001, Ray asked Kerik, who was then police commissioner and about to leave office, to testify on his behalf.

"I am sorry I have to burden you with any of this at all," Ray's E-mail began. "But I need you and my family needs you. I have done my best to keep you out of it all along ... I am told at my own peril. But as a friend I was mindful of the sensitivity of your position."

The next day, Kerik dispatched a terse response: "In the event that I am called to testify, I must tell you that my recollection of the events is not consistent with what you remember. And this would have a severely negative impact on your credibility."

Three weeks later, Ray appeared before Brooklyn Federal Judge Leo Glasser and was told to stand trial that day, either representing himself or with a public defender. Terrified, Ray pleaded guilty.

Ray's current attorney, Michael Gilberti of Red Bank, N.J., a former federal prosecutor, said he believes that a good word from Kerik could have saved his client.

Looking back, Ray believes Kerik manipulated and then abandoned him. But he still has more questions than answers.

"How come Bernie wasn't willing to go to bat for me on something so stupid, yet was so willing to do so much for Interstate?" Ray said.

A Legacy of Giuliani Years: Damage Suits Against City

By Jim Dwyer
The New York Times
December 24, 2004

Late Tuesday, a federal magistrate released testimony by Bernard B. Kerik and a former girlfriend in an employment discrimination case, one of the legal tangles from his years as a senior aide to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani that surfaced while his nomination as secretary of homeland security was collapsing.

For the Bloomberg administration, the case was just one more in an unusual collection of city lawsuits that grind along, regardless of national politics: dealing with the civil rights damages people claim to have suffered at the hands of Mr. Giuliani or his senior aides.

In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights.

Among them is a limousine driver, James Schillaci, who had complained in a newspaper article about a red-light sting set up by the police in the Bronx. The same day, police came to his home to arrest him for a 13-year-old unpaid ticket. The next day, the mayor obtained - illegally, Mr. Schillaci said - the record of his arrests from decades earlier and discussed it, inaccurately, at a news conference. The city settled with him for $290,000 in 2002.

A correction worker charged that he was bypassed for promotion because he supported a political opponent of Mr. Giuliani's and that city investigators videotaped the guests arriving at his home for a political fund-raiser. The city paid him $325,000 this year.

Lawyers for the city say they agreed to pay as a way of making the best deal for the public, not because of wrongdoing by Mr. Giuliani or other officials.

The totals for such claims could grow. Dantae Johnson of the Bronx has charged in a lawsuit that after he was shot by a police officer in May 1999, Mr. Giuliani and the police commissioner, Howard Safir, falsely described him as a criminal to justify the shooting. The officer was convicted of assault. The city has denied responsibility.

Eric H. DeVarin III, an assistant deputy warden in the Correction Department, has claimed in a lawsuit that he was denied promotion because of a dispute with Mr. Kerik's former girlfriend. Mr. Kerik has said that is untrue.

The coming issue of the journal CityLaw reports that a federal magistrate has said that an AIDS housing group can proceed with a suit to recover $35 million in government contracts that it claims to have lost as punishment for protests against Mr. Giuliani's policies. The city lawyers say the Giuliani administration had many sound reasons to stop doing business with the group, called Housing Works.

The Housing Works case is part of "a continuing saga of the policies and litigating tendencies of the Giuliani administration," said Ross Sandler, director of the Center for New York City Law at New York Law School, which publishes CityLaw.

Asked about the mounting total for cases directly involving senior officials in the Giuliani administration, Jeffrey D. Friedlander, the first assistant corporation counsel in the city's Law Department, said, "Decisions to settle cases involve questions of litigation judgment, and should not be taken as an acknowledgement of truth as to the validity of a plaintiff's argument - or the city's acceptance of that argument."

Michael D. Hess, the city's chief lawyer under Mr. Giuliani and now his partner in a private consulting firm, said settlements often were preferable to taking the risk of putting a case in front of jury that could prove to be irrational or biased. Given that the city spends hundreds of millions on lawsuits, Mr. Hess said, "Two million is nothing. Sadly, this is a drop in the bucket."

While the city is sued more than 20,000 times a year, cases have been rarely brought in which a mayor - or top City Hall aides - are accused of personally harming an individual. Even more rarely have they succeeded. Under Mr. Giuliani, the city paid $2 million in 1994 to settle claims by a group of white executives at the Off-Track Betting Corporation, who had accused Hazel Dukes, the president of the corporation appointed by Mayor David N. Dinkins, of discriminating against them; she had claimed that they were incompetent.

Prior to Mr. Giuliani, perhaps the most prominent example involved a lawsuit arising from the Crown Heights riots of 1991. A group of Hasidic residents and organizations charged that Mr. Dinkins and the police commissioner, Lee Brown, ordered police to permit the violence. After statements from 15 high-ranking police officers yielded no evidence of such an order, that portion of the claim was dropped.

The early stages of several cases from the Giuliani era, however, produced very different results, uncovering evidence that might have proved embarrassing at trial if the city had not settled. For example, a Correction Department employee, Lionel Lorquet, charged that he was bypassed for promotion because he supported Mark Green for mayor in 2001, and discovered through his lawsuit that correction investigators had secretly videotaped guests arriving at Mr. Lorquet's home for a fund-raiser held for Mr. Green.

A Law Department spokesman said correction officials had been acting on a complaint of coercion when they conducted the surveillance, not because the department's commissioner supported Mr. Bloomberg in the election. Nevertheless, the city paid Mr. Lorquet $325,000, said his lawyer, Norman Siegel.

A former member of the police Street Crime Unit, Yvette Walton, was fired in 1999 after publicly criticizing the unit's operations. The police commissioner, Mr. Safir, said she was dismissed for abuse of sick leave, but testimony showed that her commander had planned to punish her for that infraction simply by docking one day's vacation. When she began speaking out, the matter was abruptly transferred to the commissioner's office.

                                   Kerik Pal Bolts

By John Doyle and Rich Calder
New York Post
December 24, 2004

A longtime associate of Bernard Kerik quit Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm yesterday, a day after the embattled former police commissioner abruptly resigned from the company.

Sunny Mindel, a Giuliani spokeswoman, said John Picciano left Giuliani Partners on "very good terms and on his own volition."

She added that the firm has "very good relations with him and we wish him well" but declined to comment on whether Kerik and Picciano's departures are connected.

Picciano worked as Kerik's chief of staff when Kerik headed the city's Correction Department and later the NYPD. He followed Kerik to Giuliani Partners in 2002.

Controversy has followed Picciano the past decade. He got away with breaking a tax regulation similar to one that led to the arrest or dismissal of more than 100 correction officers in the late 1990s.

A female correction officer accused him of domestic violence but later withdrew her complaint. And he has declared bankruptcy several times.

Sources also have told The Post that the city's Department of Investigations has jumped in on an NYPD probe of a $200,000 purchase of four high-security doors when Kerik was police commissioner. Picciano and Edward Asward, another top Kerik aide at the time, are the focus of the probe.

Picciano was unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, dressed in a blazer and dark overcoat yesterday, Kerik strolled out of Nello's on Madison Avenue with his lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, at his side.

Just Christmas shopping," was all a smiling Kerik would say as he slipped into a waiting car.

Tacopina said Kerik already has job offers.

"I've had just a few phone calls over the last 24 hours," said Tacopina. "He's going to be OK. Here's a guy that the president picked to keep this country safe, and he's now on the market."

Kerik's scandal-plagued Homeland Security nomination hurt Giuliani, a rising star in the Republican Party who had recommended his friend and business partner to President Bush. Giuliani later personally apologized to the president for the fiasco.

Bush on Dec. 3 tapped Kerik to head Homeland Security. But Kerik abruptly withdrew his name Dec. 10, saying he suddenly realized he had neglected to pay taxes for a nanny he employed who might have been in the country illegally.

A rash of other scandals soon followed, including reports that he had connections with people suspected of doing business with the mob and that he had simultaneous extramarital affairs with two women.

Kerik Quits Rudy Co.
Calls Publicity 'Unfair and Unnecessary Distraction' to Firm

By Derek Rose and Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
December 23, 2004

Kerik Former city top cop and failed homeland security nominee Bernard Kerik yesterday quit the consulting firm he founded with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani as scandals continued to swirl around him. In a hastily called news conference, Kerik said he met with Giuliani yesterday afternoon to tell him he was resigning. "Though it hasn't been an easy decision, I feel it was the right one," Kerik said, standing in front of a hotel in midtown. "The events surrounding my withdrawal have become an unfair and unnecessary distraction to the firm and, most importantly, to the work that they do at the firm." In a separate news conference, Giuliani insisted he had not urged Kerik to resign. But the split came after days of Giuliani increasingly distancing himself from his former protégé. "I feel very bad for Bernie," Giuliani said. "He made the decision to resign, and I agree with him on that. I think he needs the time to focus, and I think he will reemerge a better man." Kerik, who reportedly earned $500,000 a year in the job, did not take questions from reporters. He said he had no firm plans beyond exploring unspecified business opportunities, finishing his second book and getting back to the gym. "I want to apologize to my family, my friends, to the President and Mayor Giuliani for the difficulties that recent events have caused all of them," Kerik said. It was the latest episode in a stunningly fast fall for the man whose stern presence beside Giuliani in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, came to symbolize a nation's steely resolve in the face of immeasurable grief. On Dec. 3, Kerik reached the apex of his career. He stood beside President Bush in a nomination ceremony at the White House. Both men noted Kerik's moving life story. Born to a prostitute mother, he became a decorated detective, commissioner of the city jails and Police Department, author of a best-selling memoir and a speaker at the Republican National Convention. But a week after the nomination, Kerik withdrew, citing problems with a nanny's paperwork. Within days, the Daily News published the results of a six-month investigation finding Kerik failed to report thousands of dollars in gifts, became entangled with a company long suspected of mob ties and had carried on two simultaneous extramarital affairs in a secret apartment near Ground Zero. This week, The News ran the content of E-mails Kerik sent to a friend in 1999 that suggest he was willing to divulge confidential details of a city investigation to the subject of the probe, Interstate Industrial of Clifton, N.J. The paper's hard look at Kerik flowed from previous News investigations that led to the arrest of two high-ranking officials promoted by Kerik when he headed the city Correction Department. In response, the city Department of Investigation last week launched a probe. "I'm confident that I will be vindicated from any allegations of wrongdoing," Kerik said. With Giuliani's consulting business relying largely on the reputation the former mayor forged during the aftermath of the terror attacks, many wondered how long the business could endure allegations of misdeeds by Kerik. Giuliani's firm announced yesterday that Giuliani-Kerik, an affiliate of Giuliani Partners, had been renamed Giuliani Security & Safety. Daniel Connolly, special counsel to the city Law Department under Giuliani, was named acting chairman and CEO. Giuliani said he is not angry at Kerik, adding that he hopes people will remember that Kerik risked his life as a cop and in starting a police force in Iraq. "He put his life at risk to protect them," Giuliani said. Citing Debacle Over Nomination,  Kerik Quits Giuliani Partnership By William K. Rashbaum and Jim Dwyer The New York Times December 23, 2004 Twelve bruising days after the collapse of his nomination as secretary of homeland security, Bernard B. Kerik yesterday abruptly announced his departure from his position at former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's consulting company, saying his troubles had become a distraction for the business. Mr. Kerik's announcement, at a hastily called news conference on the sidewalk outside the Pierre hotel on Ozier Muhammad/The New York  Fifth Avenue, ended a spectacular fall from a career Times                                           apex on Dec. 3 when President Bush nominated Bernad B. Kerid said his him for the cabinet position. troubles were now a distraction at the firm.       It severs a lucrative professional relationship with his mentor, Mr. Giuliani, who made him first correction commissioner and then police commissioner and who helped make Mr. Kerik a wealthy man in the law enforcement consulting field. Mr. Kerik became a national figure after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, writing a best-selling book and earning the admiration of President Bush, who sent him to Iraq in 2003 as interim minister of the interior to rebuild that nation's police force. Within days of his cabinet nomination, Mr. Kerik, 49, was besieged by a series of news reports citing a variety of legal, personal and ethical problems that could haunt him if he tries to find a similar consulting job. While he was New York City correction commissioner, the reports said, he spoke up for an employee of a construction company accused of business ties to organized crime that was seeking a city license. He was also accused of receiving thousands of dollars in cash gifts from the employee, an old friend. Newspapers and magazines began writing about his earlier romantic relationships, his earlier declaration of bankruptcy, and his connections to companies that do business with the Homeland Security Department. Mr. Kerik, who served as police commissioner from Aug. 19, 2000, until Dec. 31, 2002, said he had decided to resign immediately from his positions as senior vice president of Giuliani Partners L.L.C. and chief executive of Giuliani-Kerik L.L.C., an affiliate. He said the furor that followed the Dec. 10 withdrawal of his nomination - when he said he discovered he had not paid taxes for a nanny and did not know her immigration status - was beginning to affect the firm. "The events surrounding my withdrawal have become unfair, and an unnecessary distraction to the firm and most importantly to the work that they do at the firm," he said. He added: "I'm confident that I will be vindicated from any allegations of wrongdoing." He was more forceful shortly afterward in a brief telephone interview. "Whatever mistakes I made, I should answer for, and not Giuliani," Mr. Kerik said. "I don't like the fact that he is being criticized and attacked because of me. It's unfair, and it's wrong." Minutes after Mr. Kerik delivered his brief sidewalk statement, Mr. Giuliani called a news conference outside the offices of Giuliani Partners in Times Square. Appearing pained and downcast, Mr. Giuliani said he had unhappily accepted Mr. Kerik's resignation. He called him a "wonderful man" who has "done great things for this country," and described the bond the two men formed in the crucible of the 9/11 attacks. He also said he supported Mr. Kerik's decision, although he denied he had pushed him out. "He made a decision to resign and I agreed with that," Mr. Giuliani said. "I think he made the right decision." The series of troublesome reports about Mr. Kerik had inevitably become problems for Mr. Giuliani, who apologized to President Bush after Mr. Kerik withdrew. After the White House endured criticism for failing to scrutinize Mr. Kerik's background, many of the same questions were raised about Mr. Giuliani's knowledge of his commissioner's actions. Many of the same people who worked closely with Mr. Giuliani and were involved in Mr. Kerik's appointments as commissioner are also principals at Mr. Giuliani's firm, which among other things advises clients on crisis management and internal security. One person knowledgeable about the situation inside Giuliani Partners said that Mr. Kerik had offered to resign very soon after he withdrew his nomination, but that Mr. Giuliani had told him it was premature. By yesterday morning, however, Mr. Giuliani had made it clear that he wanted Mr. Kerik to leave, according to the person, who asked not to be identified for professional reasons. Asked if Mr. Giuliani had requested Mr. Kerik's resignation, Sunny Mindel, a spokeswoman for Giuliani Partners, said that both men had made it clear that it was Mr. Kerik's decision alone. After the announcement, Ms. Mindel issued a terse statement explaining the reorganization of the partnership. The statement said that Giuliani-Kerik L.L.C. was being renamed Giuliani Safety and Security, and named a number of other public safety and legal experts who would run the company. Mr. Kerik, according to an associate, will remain on the board of Taser International, a stun-gun manufacturer that sells products to the Homeland Security Department and that compensated him with stock options he sold for a profit of more than $6 million. He also plans to write another book, the associate said, and will help write a screenplay of a movie being made from his memoir. Mr. Kerik, wearing a trim blue window-pane suit and a red patterned tie, took no questions after making his remarks at a lectern set up on the sidewalk behind velvet ropes. Normally a voluble man, he seemed circumspect and his voice wavered slightly as he read his statement. He said he told Mr. Giuliani about his decision earlier in the afternoon and thanked the former mayor for his friendship. "I want to apologize to my family, my friends, the president - President Bush - Mayor Giuliani for the difficulty that the recent events have caused all of them," he said. After Mr. Kerik withdrew from the cabinet post, the issue of the nanny, whose name and nationality were never released, became obscured by far more serious questions about his actions as a high-ranking city official. The city's Department of Investigation said he failed to file a background questionnaire, as was usually required, when he was promoted from correction commissioner to police commissioner. Investigation Department officials were seeking to determine why a body of negative information the agency had gathered about Mr. Kerik was apparently never considered by City Hall before Mr. Giuliani elevated him to the police post in 2000. Mr. Giuliani said yesterday that he was more sad than angry at Mr. Kerik, and that they would remain friends. "This is something that he'll be able to recover from," Mr. Giuliani said. "He will address the issues. It will take time - meaning months, whatever a process like this takes. I believe he will successfully address the issues that are raised, and then I think he will re-emerge a better man." Christopher Drew and David W. Chen contributed reporting for this article.

Kerik Quits Rudy's Firm

By Rich Calder and Lorena Mongelli
New York Post
December 23, 2004

Embattled former NYPD top cop Bernard Kerik yesterday abruptly resigned from Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm, apologizing for a recent string of embarrassing disclosures about his finances and private life.

For Kerik — who touched off political troubles for Giuliani earlier this month by his messy withdrawal as a nominee to head the Homeland Security Department — it was like going from the White House to the outhouse.

"The events surrounding my withdrawal have become an unfair and unnecessary distraction to the firm and the important work being done there," Kerik said at a hastily called press conference outside The Pierre hotel on Fifth Avenue. "I am confident that I will be vindicated from any allegation of wrongdoing."

Kerik, 49, read from a prepared statement and did not take questions from reporters.

A spokesman for the former police commissioner said afterwards that Kerik's decision to step down was his alone.

About a half-hour later, Giuliani, in a separate press conference a mile away, reiterated the same message, saying he agreed with Kerik's decision but was not behind it.

"Did I encourage him or push him? No, I did not; it came from Bernie," the ex-mayor said outside a Times Square office building that houses his firm, Giuliani Partners. "That discussion began a few days ago, a week ago."

"He made some mistakes," Giuliani added. "He is going to have to deal with those issues now, and I believe he will be able to do that."

Kerik's scandal-plagued Homeland Security nomination hurt Giuliani, a rising star in the Republican Party who had recommended his friend and business partner to President Bush.

Giuliani later personally apologized to the president for the fiasco.

Bush on Dec. 3 tapped Kerik to head Homeland Security. But Kerik abruptly withdrew his name Dec. 10, saying he suddenly realized he had neglected to pay taxes for a nanny he employed who might have been in the country illegally.

A rash of other scandals soon followed, including reports that he had connections with people suspected of doing business with the mob and that he had simultaneous extramarital affairs with two women.

The Bronx district attorney is probing allegations that Kerik illegally accepted gifts and had a business relationship with the owner of a construction firm suspected of having organized-crime links. Kerik failed to fill out a mandatory background form before being appointed police commissioner in 2000, according to the city's Department of Investigation.

After leaving the Police Department in 2002, Kerik joined Giuliani Partners as a security consultant.Giuliani Partners has advised business and government agencies on security, leadership and other issues.

Kerik then signed on to help launch the Iraqi police force.

Kerik said he plans to "clear [his] good name, spend more time with his family, and go to the gym more.

Kerik Quits Giuliani's Consulting Firm

By Sam Dolnick
Associated Press
December 22, 2004

NEW YORK - Former police commissioner and one-time Cabinet nominee Bernard Kerik said Wednesday he will leave Giuliani Partners, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's consulting firm.

At a news conference in Manhattan, Kerik said he had apologized to Giuliani for being a distraction because of his messy with-
Kerik and Giuliani                            drawal as a candidate to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Kerik had been CEO of Giuliani-Kerik LLC, an affiliate of Giuliani Partners LLC. In a statement Wednesday, Giuliani said Giuliani-Kerik would be renamed Giuliani Security & Safety.

Kerik said he told Giuliani his resignation would be effective immediately. He said he would seek other unspecified business opportunities, and did not take questions from reporters.

"After careful consideration, I have decided that it is in the best interests of my family, my colleagues and our clients that I resign my position with Giuliani Partners and Giuliani-Kerik,'' Kerik said.

"I am confident that I will be vindicated from any allegation of wrongdoing,'' he added.

Giuliani said he had not asked for Kerik's resignation.

"He made the decision,'' the former mayor said at a later news conference. "The impetus came from Bernie. I think he made the right decision for himself and his family. No one or anyone can take away from him the incredible bravery.''

President Bush tapped Kerik, 49, earlier this month as his nominee for homeland security secretary, but Kerik abruptly withdrew his name Dec. 10 after revealing that he had not paid all required taxes for a family nanny-housekeeper and that the woman may have been in the country illegally.

He has been hit with other allegations as well, including that he had connections with people suspected of doing business with the mob and that he had simultaneous extramarital affairs with two women.

Kerik's nomination became a political embarrassment for Giuliani, a rising star in the GOP who had recommended his friend and business partner to Bush.

After leaving the police department in 2002, Kerik joined Giuliani Partners, becoming a security consultant and then signing on to help launch the Iraqi police force. When Kerik left for Baghdad last May, he told reporters he expected to be there for six months. He departed after four.

Giuliani Partners has advised business and government agencies on security, leadership and other issues. The consulting firm advised Trinidad in its battle against a rise in kidnappings and murders and was paid $4.3 million by Mexico City officials for advice on reducing crime there.

Kerik Court Flap
There's a Discrepancy in Testimony by Him and ex

By Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
December 22, 2004

Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik and a correction officer he once dated recently testified in a civil suit that their affair burned out by early 1997, according to transcripts unsealed yesterday.

But, as the Daily News reported last week, in 2001 Kerik kept a secret Battery Park City apartment where he carried on extra-marital affairs with Correction Officer Jeannette Pinero and with Judith Regan, the media titan who published his memoir, according to sources intimately aware of the relationships.

During one visit, Pinero found a love note Regan had left for Kerik, the sources said. The two "other women" later spoke on the phone, the sources said.

Gregory Lisi, attorney for the correction official who filed the suit, said the discrepancy could land both in hot water.

"But whether or not the DA would prosecute or the judge would sanction, that would be up to them," Lisi said.

Then again, both could revise their testimony. At the request of city attorneys, U.S. Magistrate Nathaniel Fox gave Pinero and Kerik 30 days to "review and, where necessary, correct" their transcripts.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court, Eric DeRavin 3rd alleges that Kerik, when city correction boss, denied him a promotion from the rank of assistant deputy warden because he had disciplined Pinero.

City attorneys argued that DeRavin's case is frivolous and is intended only to embarrass Kerik.

Last year, the city settled a suit making similar claims for $250,000.

Kerik and Pinero testified the week before Kerik's nomination to become homeland security czar collapsed in an onslaught of controversy.

Pinero testified that her affair with Kerik began in November 1995, after Kerik's driver, Louis Camacho, arranged a blind date.

"He wanted me to go out to dinner with a friend," Pinero said.

She didn't know she would be meeting Kerik, then the first deputy correction commissioner, at a New Jersey restaurant.

Kerik was then unmarried. Pinero was a mother of three who was separated from her husband and working in a clerical job at correction headquarters.

Pinero, who has reconciled with her husband, testified that the affair was over by January 1997.

"It just ended," she said. "It was not in bad terms ... we just stopped calling each other, just drifted apart."

She testified she had last seen Kerik at a book signing to support his best-selling memoir, "The Lost Son," in early 2002.

In a separate deposition, Kerik said the affair lasted only "six to nine months, maybe" and was over by the summer or fall on 1996.

Kerik, who married his current wife, Hala, in November 1998, testified that he and Pinero still crossed paths, even after Kerik became police commissioner in August 2000. "We remained friends," Kerik said. "We still remain friends."

During Pinero's deposition, city attorneys asked Fox to gag all testimony related to the affair. Fox granted a temporary gag, but lifted it yesterday after the city dropped its objections to releasing the depositions.

Kerik 'Fesses up to Affair with Corrections Gal

By Carl Campanile
New York Post
December 22, 2004

Bernard Kerik has admitted to having sexual relations with a female corrections officer while serving as first deputy commissioner of the department.

Kerik was forced to answer questions about his steamy romance with correction worker Janet Pinero in sworn testimony Dec. 9, responding to a civil-rights lawsuit filed against him and the city.

Former city prison warden Eric DeRavin has charged that Kerik — who went on to become head of the department and then the city's police commissioner — denied him numerous promotions because he had clashed with Pinero.

"Did you have a sexual relationship with Ms. Pinero?" DeRavin's lawyer, Gregory Lisi, asked in a deposition.

"Yes," Kerik said.

He said the romance started in 1995, lasted "six to nine months, maybe" — and stressed that it didn't affect his decision-making.

"We remained friends. We still remain friends," said Kerik, who wed his wife, Hala, in 1998.

He has been accused of continuing to have simultaneous affairs with Pinero and publisher Judith Regan even after his marriage.

Publicly, Kerik has admitted only to "close relationships" with them.

Kerik has been in the eye of the storm since withdrawing his nomination to head Homeland Security, after admitting he didn't properly register or pay taxes for his family nanny.

In his deposition, Kerik described how he first noticed the pretty Pinero milling about at work.

In her deposition, Pinero revealed that the pair met on a blind date for dinner.

Bernie Might Pull a Bubba: Sex Suit

By Carl Campanile and Vincent Morris
New York Post
December 21, 2004

While Bernard Kerik's Cabinet appointment was pending, a former city prison warden tried to air lurid details of Kerik's sex life in a federal lawsuit.

Erik DeRavin's lawyer argued that salacious specifics about Kerik's affair with a correction officer while he was correction commissioner should be revealed because otherwise, Kerik might pull a Bill Clinton — and fudge what kind of affair it was.

DeRavin, a former correction assistant deputy warden, is suing Kerik in a nasty federal civil-rights suit, claiming he was denied a promotion by Kerik as retaliation for disciplining his lover, Jeannette Pinero.

The suit got nastier during Kerik's brief bid to become head of Homeland Security, when DeRavin's lawyer, Gregory Lisi, sought the dirt in depositions of Kerik and Pinero.

Federal Magistrate Judge Kevin Fox has yet to rule on whether to make public the sealed depositions — particularly any steamy portions.

But a transcript of a court proceeding on Dec. 7 show lawyers heatedly arguing over what should be released.

"When Ms. Pinero stated . . . that she had a sexual relationship with Mr. Kerik, I asked her definition of what sexual relationship [is]," Lisi said.

"As your honor knows from some other cases — the one that comes to my mind immediately for me is the Bill Clinton case — that different people have different definitions of what 'sexual relationship' means."

Lisi said he wanted specifics to prevent Kerik from imitating Clinton by giving tortured explanations of what constitutes a sexual affair.

City lawyer Diana Goell Voight, who is representing Kerik, and Pinero lawyer Andrew Lauffer opposed Lisi's line of questioning as unnecessary.

Voight also objected to Lisi asking if Kerik had romantic affairs with other correctional employees.

Lauffer said this case wasn't like Clinton and Monica Lewinsky because the former president lied about his relationship with the White House intern.

"President Clinton denied having any sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, which has absolutely nothing to do with this case," Lauffer said.

"It's been stated by my client that she did, in fact, have sexual relations with Mr. Kerik, and that's where it should end, your honor," he added.

During his deposition, Kerik was also grilled about why certain employees were promoted or denied promotion.

More than 4,500 pages of personnel documents have been turned over by the city in the case, including 145 administrative complaints of discrimination.

Meanwhile, President Bush offered a surprising defense of Kerik yesterday in his press conference.

"I was disappointed that the nomination of Bernard Kerik didn't go forward," Bush said, in his first public comments about the Kerik controversy.

"I think he would have done a fine job as the secretary of homeland security," said Bush.

Opening Kerik's E-mail
Then-jails Boss Kept Pal Abreast of Probe

By Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
December 20, 2004

Ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani (c.), pictured with former Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen (l.) and Bernard Kerik at Giuliani Partners in September 2002, now says that Kerik plays only a limited role in their consulting business. E-mails sent by Bernard Kerik when he headed the city Correction Department appear to show him offering to provide inside details of the city's investigation into a mob-linked firm. The E-mails, the existence of which the Daily News revealed yesterday, were sent by Kerik to Lawrence Ray in 1999. Ray, who was the best man at Kerik's wedding, was then working for Interstate Industrial, a major city contractor suspected of ties to organized crime. Ray and Kerik parted ways after Ray was indicted on a conspiracy charge in 2000. Ray later pleaded guilty. After months of requests, Ray recently allowed The News to examine the E-mails sent by Kerik, who withdrew from his nomination as secretary of homeland security on Dec. 10. The News viewed the messages in Ray's AOL folder. They were sent from an E-mail address that the paper confirmed Kerik regularly used. The messages showed no signs of having been altered. Ray says he will turn them over to the city Department of Investigation, which has opened an inquiry into Kerik. In late 1998, Kerik recommended Ray for a job helping Interstate deal with regulators, according to sworn testimony by Frank DiTomasso, Interstate's owner. DiTomasso then hired Kerik's brother, Don, and struck up a personal friendship with Kerik. "Now, as for FD," Ray says Kerik wrote in an April 29, 1999, E-mail. Ray told The News that FD was a reference to DiTomasso. "His father talked to Guy [Molinari] on Friday but nothing went onto his schedule. D's got to call today and make an appointment. It may be good if you go with him, just to have a little more input as to why we think that he's getting railroaded. I've explained everything to Dan Donovan, [Molinari's] chief of staff ..." Molinari, then-Staten Island borough president, had known DiTomasso's father for decades. The same E-mail suggests that Kerik planned to pass along information from a city investigation of Interstate. Kerik says Raymond Casey, a cousin of then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani - whom Kerik incorrectly identifies as a nephew - might give him insight that would be valuable to Interstate. "Bad news, or it could be good," Kerik wrote, according to Ray. "Rudy's nephew in the Tradewaste has been appointed from Inspector General to Deputy Commissioner of Investigations. That's how he's aware of everything going on. He's overseeing all of the investigations. It's not only the internal oversight stuff, but it's every investigation. That could be bad for me for the moment, but I think overall, good for us if Harding does his job and gets aggressive." The "Harding" appears to be a reference to Russell Harding, son of then-Liberal Party boss Ray Harding, who served in a general fixer role at City Hall. Casey acknowledged last week that Kerik had approached him about Interstate. In another passage, Kerik guides Ray on how to help Interstate deal with the Trade Waste Commission. Interstate had just hired Copstat, a security firm run by James Wood, a retired NYPD lieutenant. "Stay on top of Jimmy Wood and push the Security control issue," Ray says Kerik wrote. "His notes and records will be helpful with the TWC if need be." The E-mail also shows Kerik's concern for his brother's role at Interstate. "Tell Frank my brother had a big blow up with some of the lower level guys at his place. ..." Ray says Kerik wrote. "He got a little nervous because he still doesn't know what he's making. Also he wants to get the benefit package started for his daughter." On Friday, The News faxed the E-mails to Kerik's attorney, Joseph Tacopina, and later called for comment. Tacopina never responded. A DOI investigator contacted Ray and his attorney last week to arrange a meeting, likely to take place this week.                      Team Bush Spins Bernie Fallout By James Gordon Meek And Maggie Haberman in New York Daily News Staff Writers December 20, 2004  A top aide to President Bush tried to distance the White House from the Bernard Kerik nomination mess yesterday - even as he suggested officials were acquainted with many of the problems plaguing New York's former top cop. Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, suggested Bush merely "intended" to nominate Kerik for homeland security chief - and said Kerik likely "didn't understand the nature of the klieg light that would be turned on." Speaking on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," Card defended the White House vetting process - insisting "many of the questions that have been raised in the media were well understood by the White House when they considered Bernie Kerik." He did not say which issues officials knew about, and said it was Kerik's decision not to go forward with the nomination. Meanwhile, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Kerik's main backer, seemed to try to limit any damage to his consulting firm. While calling him a "great asset" who will stay on, he told Newsweek that Kerik is "not part of Giuliani Partners," and plays only a small role involving "less than 5%" of the firm's business. Officials have called clients to promise good service and rebut some Kerik claims. He said Kerik's role is mostly at their joint partnership, Giuliani-Kerik - although Giuliani Partners' Web site lists the former NYPD boss as senior veep. That's "what Bernie was when we started," said Giuliani. "I think that remains his title, but that's not the way we primarily relate to him. ... We should probably straighten it out and point out where his ownership interest and primary work is done."

Koch: Kerik a "Disgrace"

Rich Calder
New York Post
December 19, 2004

Former Mayor Ed Koch yesterday called ex-NYPD top cop Bernard Kerik a "disgrace" for allegedly attempting to hide his controversial past before President Bush tapped him to become the nation's homeland security czar.

"He had two mistresses both at the same time — that takes a lot of strength — and a wife, and that's his own business, but when he uses an apartment given to the Police Department for cops to rest after 9/11 duty, then it becomes a public matter," Koch said on WABC's Mark Simone radio show.

The shoot-from-the-hip Koch also ripped former mayor Rudy Giuliani, saying his appointment of Kerik to police commissioner without a background investigation was "not only sloppy, but crazy."

Kerik's Fall Leaves Rudy's Career Up in the Air

Editorial
New York Daily News
December 20, 2004

Those who hate Rudy Giuliani find it impossible to believe that a supposedly paranoid know-it-

all like him would not be totally aware of all the things now landsliding out of Bernard Kerik's closet.

Rudy had to know. So why didn't he? The elephantine Giuliani ego supposedly was the trouble. It became bigger than a herd of pachyderms after he and Kerik were elevated into apparently invincible positions of esteem after 9/11. Rudy became America's Mayor, and Kerik became something like America's Cop. Both went on to become wealthy as experts on security, as well as business partners.

But it seems that all that success set the two of them up.

This is not all that surprising. As police commissioner, Kerik was commended by many cops, who saw him as innovative. They said he quietly bettered the position of nonwhite cops who had long been ignored by the department. But there was always other talk about Kerik, almost all of it dark and repulsive.

Now the rumors and private accusations have given way to the public repainting of him as a man who abused his power at every opportunity. He is accused of having sexually intimidated and imposed himself on female workers. We hear he was tight with New Jersey gangsters and made money from criminals, all of which led this paper to demand a formal investigation. It no longer seems impossible to believe Kerik stalked and terrorized one of the women he supposedly had charmed into an affair.

In my own dealings with Kerik, he was never less than charming, intelligent and witty. He was always ready to look into any accusations of abusive behavior or excessive force that were raised against individual police officers.

At the same time, the cops with whom I have talked found him one of two things - either a likeable guy or a man whom they claimed was clearly a manipulative, narcissistic sicko suffering alternately from grandiosity and paranoia.

Every image or charge is contradicted by an opposing image and an opposing body of information. If the real Bernard Kerik were to stand up, he would quickly split into a number of people.

The question that remains is what effect Kerik's fall will have on the career of Giuliani. Will Kerik, if charges are brought against him, pull everything down with him?

Will Giuliani remain with him to the end?

It all comes down to whether the public winds up seeing the man once hailed as America's Mayor as a guy who could be conned as easily as a simpleminded mark from the sticks. We'll soon see.

Giuliani: I Couldn't Kerik less

By Ian Bishop
New York Post
December 20, 2004

WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani — desperate to protect his reputation and his business — is sprinting away from scandal-scarred Bernard Kerik.

In a lengthy interview with Newsweek, Giuliani said Kerik's role at Giuliani Partners was so minor that he handled "less than 5 percent" of the company's business.

In fact, Kerik doesn't even work at Giuliani Partners, the former mayor told the magazine, he works at an offshoot called Giuliani-Kerik — even though Kerik is touted as a senior executive of the parent company on its Web site.

"Senior vice president of the group is what Bernie was when we started. I think that remains his title, but that's not the way we primarily relate to him," Giuliani explained. "We should probably straighten it out and point out where his ownership interest is and primary work is done."

Kerik has become a political leper since baby-sitting problems exploded into the Nannygate scandal that de-railed his bid to become homeland security chief, and allegations of extramarital affairs and mob ties have shredded his reputation. And no one is more vulnerable than Giuliani, who pushed Kerik on President Bush and then ultimately had to beg Bush for forgiveness.

Meanwhile, the White House says it was well aware of Kerik's personal foibles before Nannygate erupted. "But it was Bernie Kerik's decision not to go forward," White House chief of staff Andrew Card told ABC's "This Week."

"The process of vetting in the White House . . . is not to telegraph to lots of people what your intentions are," Card said. "But an awful lot of work had been done."

Kerik Tax 'Break'

By Rich Calder
New York Post
December 19, 2004

A city correction officer romantically linked to Bernard Kerik when he was correction commissioner got away with breaking tax rules that led to more than 100 of her co-workers being arrested or fired in a 1990s scandal, The Post has learned.

Jeanette Pinero filed W-4 forms from 1992 to 1995 declaring 99 exemptions, a maneuver that increased her take-home pay and allowed her to delay paying income tax, city records show. Hundreds of Pinero's co-workers did the same thing, but not everyone got punished.

Five of the correction officers who were fired or disciplined claimed to The Post that Pinero's lack of punishment is just one of many examples of how Kerik "selectively enforced" laws and regulations while heading the department.

"Corrections has a lot of cliques, and if you are part of that in-crowd, things won't happen to you," said Ronnie Fordham, an ex-department captain who sued Kerik and the city over being fired and charged with a felony in the scandal.

"There was a lot of favoritism, nepotism and cronyism going on in that department while Kerik was running it," Fordham added.

Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, declined to comment.

By listing 99 exemptions, the most allowed by law, Pinero was able to avoid having more than $60,000 withheld from her paychecks over a four-year period, estimated an accountant who reviewed some of Pinero's income information for The Post.

City officials said tax-secrecy laws prevent them from knowing whether Pinero, 41, still owes taxes. But they say they presume she eventually paid up because she was never prosecuted or disciplined.

Pinero, approached Friday at home in Greenwood Lake, declined to comment on her tax filings and her relationship with Kerik, also the embattled ex-NYPD boss.

While Pinero and John Picciano, Kerik's former chief of staff, were among those who went unpunished, other city employees were not as fortunate.

Kerik, 49, became romantically involved with Pinero when he was deputy commissioner of the Correction Department in the mid-1990s.

At least 150 were disciplined in the late 1990s, including 85 correction officers who were arrested.

With assistance from the state attorney general and the Manhattan DA, the city's watchdog Department of Investigation in the mid-1990s probed a growing trend of correction employees and other city workers filing false tax claims.

Prosecutors decided who was arrested; agency commissioners determined who was disciplined internally.

Emily Gest, a Department of Investigations spokeswoman, said, "All similarly situated city employees were treated in the same manner" throughout the entire tax-fraud probe.

Additional reporting by Joe McGurk

Kerik Fallout Hovers Over Giuliani, but Only in N.Y.

By Jennifer Steinhauer
The New York Times
December 18, 2004

George Gutierrez for The New York Times As Rudolph W. Giuliani arrived at work this week, reporters were waiting with questions about his business partner, Bernard B. Kerik.

For the last year, New Yorkers have watched in amazement as Rudolph W. Giuliani morphed into the shining star of a national Republican Party that is far more conservative than he is. The closer he moved to the Bush administration, the farther he seemed to move past the personal and political history that city voters remembered well.

Last week, when his business partner, Bernard B. Kerik, withdrew his nomination as secretary of homeland security and Mr. Giuliani had to apologize to the White House, New Yorkers were again reminded of the headstrong mayor they got to know during the 1990's, long before he became an American symbol. Many in the city spent a week of Christmas parties and subway rides chattering about the first chink in Mr. Giuliani's post-Sept. 11 armor and speculating about how much his advocacy of Mr. Kerik would damage his future in American politics.

But around the country, where Mr. Giuliani's reputation continues to glow, many Republicans seem unconcerned that Mr. Kerik's woes may complicate Mr. Giuliani's political future. Some simply see the problem as Mr. Kerik's alone, and are far less interested in the subject than New Yorkers are.

"He was close to Kerik, sure, but what does that mean?" asked Spencer Jenkins, the executive director of the Utah Republican Party. "Does that mean he was responsible for everything that Kerik did or thought? I don't see any negative here." A Quinnipiac University national poll of 1,529 registered voters, released on Thursday, said that 45 percent of those surveyed still wanted him to run for president, as did 68 percent of Republicans.

The one group that was angriest at Mr. Giuliani for his advocacy of Mr. Kerik were conservatives, a potent force within the party already disquieted by his liberal social views. Among these voters, so vital to President Bush's re-election, the Kerik incident spotlighted the hurdles Mr. Giuliani would face should he ever decide to run for national office.

Many in the party's right wing, already nursing concerns about Mr. Giuliani's judgment, insist that his appeal is akin to that of a rock star - sexy but no future - and see this as the final straw.

"The question becomes, how does he fit with the plurality of the rest of Republicans, and the answer is, not very well," said David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "And the Kerik thing does not help. It really goes to the flip side of what people like about Rudy, which is that he is not seen as someone who is very careful about much of anything. It raises the question of what kind of people and what kind of checking would he do if he were in the position of making those kind of decisions."

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Giuliani conceded that he had no idea of how Mr. Kerik's spectacular implosion would reflect on him. "I think it is too early to tell," Mr. Giuliani said. "If I do re-enter politics in some kind of direct way, that is really when you would find out." He added: "You could speculate either way."

Mr. Giuliani's history of entrusting and empowering people close to him even when others smelled trouble, and then standing by them under fire, was a hallmark of his eight-year tenure.

In 1998, Mr. Giuliani appointed Russell Harding, the son of the then-politically influential head of the Liberal Party, as president of the Housing Development Corporation, and defended his decision even though Mr. Harding was a college dropout with no experience in either housing or finance.

Mr. Harding pleaded guilty this year to making false statements to investigators about a vehicle bought with $38,000 of city funds and used for personal purposes.

Mr. Giuliani appointed JoAnna Aniello, the mother of Anthony V. Carbonetti, his chief of staff, as deputy general manager of the city housing authority, even though a division under her authority came under scrutiny in the 1990's after a spate of flash fires in the stairwells of public housing buildings. Mr. Giuliani then appointed her to a lucrative city board position during his last two weeks in office, a deal Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unraveled after his inauguration.

Memories of the mayor's missteps were revived among his many Democratic critics this week in a burst of holiday merriment, making his travails with the White House the talk of the city's party circuit.

"The narrative of Rudy Giuliani now is the 9/11 hero," said Mark Green, the former public advocate and longtime foe of the former mayor. "This is the first time in three years that the press has had a story that credibly questioned the Giuliani team's integrity."

Does he enjoy the party chatter?

"It's a good question," Mr. Green said. "And I am not going to answer it."

Since Mr. Giuliani has been out of office, he has been stunningly successful at attracting clients to his security consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, and gaining prominence in the national party, largely by talking authoritatively about national security issues and dodging conversations about social issues.

By all accounts, his company's client base is firm for now. In interviews with press officers for nine of his clients, all said they would happily continue doing business with Giuliani Partners.

"The work they have done for us is quite impressive," said Larry Gottlieb, a spokesman for Entergy. But one principal of a company that works with Mr. Giuliani said he hoped that Mr. Kerik's role would be marginalized in the partnership.

Yesterday Mr. Giuliani said that he had no plans to remove Mr. Kerik, and that his clients had assured him they still thought his services were valuable.

"The Bernie Kerik situation is a situation that really related to a group of questions that he has to answer, but do not affect our business," Mr. Giuliani said. If clients have concerns about Mr. Kerik, he added, "that is something I would talk to them about confidentially and then assess."

Two outside experts, however, said the incident could scare off new clients. "The potential damage in something like this is in your ability to attract new business," said James Fisher, director of the Emerson Center for Business at St. Louis University. "The fact that the consulting business focuses on issues of leadership values and integrity, I think this is a significant crisis for a firm like that."

Bernie Kerik Has a Message for Prosecutors:
Bring it On. Go Ahead, Check My Past: Kerik

By Celeste Katz
and Maki Becker
New York Daily News

The tough-guy former NYPD commissioner "welcomes" inquiries by the city and the Bronx district attorney, saying they'll put to rest allegations about unethical gifts, extramarital affairs and ties to mob-linked city contractors, his lawyer said yesterday.

"I welcome preliminary investigations, and I welcome thorough investigations," the attorney, Joe Tacopina, told reporters.

"Because eventually there's going to come a time when Bernie's name is going to be vindicated in regards to a lot of these ambiguous allegations - loose allegations - and the only way it's going to happen is through an investigation."

Kerik's reputation has imploded in the last week after he backed out of his nomination by President Bush to be secretary of homeland security.

Kerik and his lawyer have repeatedly said the only reason he pulled his name was that he discovered he may not have paid all the required taxes for his children's nanny - and she might have been in the country illegally.

Yesterday, after a series of investigative stories by the Daily News raised questions about Kerik's past, the city Department of Investigation announced it had launched its own probe.

That follows a separate inquiry begun by Bronx prosecutors into a Riverdale apartment Kerik bought in 1999 while he was having financial trouble.

Tacopina said he expects Kerik's name will be cleared.

"One thing about Bernie Kerik: He's a tough guy," Tacopina said, recalling Kerik's glory days.

"He was in Iraq for three months having mortars dropped at his feet," Tacopina said. "He was in a building Sept. 11 that almost killed him. He's been an undercover narcotics detective.

"He's put his life on the line hundreds of times for this city and this country. ...He's had bullets miss his head by a foot.

"So he's tough enough to withstand this. He'll be back."

Authorities with the Department of Investigation - which ferrets out corruption, fraud and unethical conduct by city officials and employees - would not give details about the scope of their inquiry into Kerik's past.

Questions have arisen about whether Kerik filled out a required background information form when he was named police commissioner in 2000.

DOI officials said he had filed the required information in 1998 when he became correction commissioner. But sources said Kerik failed to provide background information in 2000.

The agency did receive annual reports, including financial disclosures, from Kerik.

A News investigation found that Kerik failed to report numerous, expensive gifts in those disclosure forms.

Tacopina played down the significance of Kerik's alleged failure to provide background information.

"It's not as if Bernie Kerik fell out of the sky and became police commissioner," he said. "There was nothing that was not disclosed about his past that wasn't disclosed in '98."

City Starts Probe of Kerik
Dept. Of Investigation Takes its Cue from News Revelations

By Maki Becker
and Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
December 17, 2004

Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Dept. of Investigation is probing Kerik's tenure. The city Department of Investigation has launched a probe into ethical breaches committed by Bernard Kerik, the city's former top cop. The inquiry - one of two confronting Kerik - will explore numerous ethical lapses revealed in the Daily News this week after Kerik's nomination to become the nation's homeland security czar collapsed. In a series of investigative stories, The News disclosed that Kerik broke rules on accepting gifts, developed close ties with an allegedly mob-linked city contractor and maintained a secret downtown apartment for simultaneous extramarital liaisons with two women. The Department of Investigation released a statement last night saying it would make no further comments until it could digest "a matter that began four years ago that involves many people who are no longer in city government." DOI is empowered to investigate corrupt city employees and contractors. It regularly teams with state or federal prosecutors when its investigators uncover potential criminal activity. The DOI statement noted that Kerik failed to file a background form when he was appointed police commissioner in 2000, though he had filed one when named correction commissioner two years before that. DOI added that under current rules, all commissioners and other high-ranking officials must undergo background checks. Many have wondered whether the White House asked DOI about Kerik before President Bush's nomination. DOI officials clarified last night that the agency had not been contacted before or after Bush's pick bombed. The News reported Wednesday that in 1999, when Kerik was having trouble meeting some of his financial obligations, he bought two apartments that were combined into one during an extensive renovation. A spokesman for Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said the office had begun looking at Kerik's purchase and remodeling of the apartments, in the Riverdale section of the borough. "We're gathering information," said the spokesman, Stephen Reed, who said the matter is not yet a full-blown criminal investigation. Meanwhile, Kerik's attorney released a few new details about the nanny Kerik has insisted was at the center of his withdrawn nomination. The lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, said the nanny worked for Kerik for about 18 months before leaving in early November. Kerik only obtained the required New Jersey forms to register as the nanny's employer on Nov. 17, Tacopina said. But Tacopina refused to disclose the nanny's name or nationality. He dismissed suggestions that the nanny was just a cover for more embarrassing problems that Kerik feared would come up during the confirmation process. "There's a nanny," said Tacopina. "I swear there's a nanny." With Chrisena Coleman   Rudy's Hire Mess By Rich Calder New York Post December 17, 2004 Former NYPD top cop Bernard Kerik broke the rules by failing to fill out a mandatory background form before being appointed police commissioner — and Rudy Giuliani's City Hall may have interfered in the process, officials said last night. The city's watchdog Department of Investigation is reviewing the Kerik hiring following a recent string of crushing disclosures about his financial practices and private life. The DOI said that the White House, which nominated Kerik to become the country's homeland-security czar, never contacted the city about his background information. The questionnaire that Kerik failed to file with the DOI in 2000 must be signed and notarized. It says that those who supply false information on it could be charged with a crime and eventually fired. Authorities said it was unclear what action could be taken against officials who do not submit the form. The DOI said Kerik did fill out a background form before becoming Correction Department commissioner in 1998. Referring to his failure to submit the form before becoming NYPD boss, the statement said, "We have been told there was a communication between City Hall and DOI." Kerik was appointed by Giuliani, his longtime ally, but DOI declined to say if the "communication" was intended to hinder the background-check process. Joseph Tacopina, Kerik's lawyer, said the background form Kerik submitted to become Correction Department commissioner should be enough. "He didn't drop out of the sky to become police commissioner, so his background was already established," Tacopina said. "It's not like he threw away a form. He wasn't required to do it." Sunny Mindel, a Giuliani spokeswoman, said the ex-mayor did not interfere in the background-check process. She also said he asked for disclosure reports from both Kerik and Joseph Dunne, the high-ranking cop who was Kerik's main competition for the NYPD top spot. Giuliani eventually went with Kerik, his driver during the 1993 mayoral campaign. City workers in the past have been prosecuted for lying on background forms. In 2003, a lawyer at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development was charged with two felonies for not reporting two drug arrests. * In a courtroom stunner earlier yesterday, Manhattan federal Judge Richard Casey told jurors in the Peter Gotti case to ignore news accounts about Kerik because his name has been connected to a construction firm that was linked to organized crime in the trial. "I want you to avoid reading any stories regarding Mr. Bernard Kerik and his move for nomination as head of Homeland Security," Casey said. He told lawyers —— without the jury present —— that there were news accounts tying Kerik to Interstate Industrial Corp. and that he didn't want the flap to sway jurors. Additional reporting by Carl Campanile and David Seifman

Giuliani says that old pal Bernie Kerik has some explaining to do. Kerik rented a lovenest in this building (center), overlooking Ground Zero, just after September 11. After days of embarrassing revelations, Rudy Giuliani scolded former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik yesterday, saying he has a "fair amount of explaining to do." "I told him directly, 'There are are some significant mistakes you made here, even granted that only some of this is true,'" Giuliani said. "And this is an aspect of Bernie's personality that needs to be changed. In this area - being careful - he is challenged. Really challenged." The Daily News reported this week that Kerik broke city rules on accepting gifts, carried on two adulterous affairs in a secret apartment and buddied up to a city contractor with alleged mob ties. Kerik has insisted he withdrew his nomination to become homeland security czar solely because he had failed to pay taxes on a nanny, who had an uncertain immigration status. When Giuliani was asked how he felt toward Kerik, given all the revelations, the ex-mayor said he "wouldn't describe it as angry." "I told him, 'You made some very big mistakes here, and you would have saved yourself and a lot of others some trouble if you had dealt with this earlier.' "I remain his friend and I remain confident that he will be able to work his way through this. But he has a fair amount of explaining to do." When The News first broke the stories about Kerik, Giuliani stood by his man - telling reporters he "had confidence in Bernie." His piercing remarks yesterday came after three days of heart-to-heart talks between Giuliani and Kerik. Giuliani said he had encouraged Kerik to grow from the mistakes, adding there was "no question" he would keep Kerik at his consulting company - even though the recent furor may have led to the cancellation of its holiday party last night. "Everybody is now willing to forget the contributions Bernie has made," Giuliani said. "I saw them firsthand and they were at the level of truly heroism, and that counts a great deal with me." The News reported yesterday that in 1999, when Kerik was correction commissioner, he had bought two apartments in a building where previously he had had difficulty affording one. The apartments were combined and extensively renovated under building permits filed by a recently indicted contractor and a soon-to-be-indicted engineer. Joseph Tacopina, Kerik's attorney, insisted the building hired the contractor and engineer and Kerik took ownership only after work to combine the units was complete. "Bernie Kerik never met either of those individuals," said Tacopina. "Bernie Kerik never hired either of those individuals. Those individuals were hired by the building and the building secured the permits." He said Kerik bought the combined units for $170,000 and borrowed $50,000 for "minor renovations." Tacopina discounted Kerik's woes as the work of enemies made during eight years of tough-guy management at the Correction and Police departments. The News first reported Monday that Kerik had two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a secret Battery Park City apartment for the liaisons shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Tacopina said he did not know enough to comment on the love nest. Kerik's Friends in High Places, With Blinders By Joyce Purnick The New York Times December 16, 2004 By now, it has become painfully apparent that Bernard B. Kerik could have been saved from himself. He could have been rescued by his old friend in New York, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Or by his new (if now disaffected) friend in Washington, President Bush. But he withdrew a week after the president nominated him for homeland security secretary, citing a nanny problem that turned out to be just one of multiple embarrassments that continue to tumble out. It turns out that a number of people were familiar with aspects of his problems, from his debts and unreported gifts to his extramarital relationships and his high-handed use of police officers as personal investigators. The Bush administration and city investigators had investigated his background, and some of the information had been made public. Yet nobody seems to have connected all the dots. Critics blame the vetting systems, but it could be that something else was at work. There are signs that Mr. Kerik benefited from that well-established political tradition - favoritism. When someone is well regarded by power, he tends to get a pass. Think of it as social promotion, political style. There is an inclination to look the other way, or not to look too closely, to echo the boss's positive opinions. Maybe that's what happened with Mr. Kerik, because there was indeed a lot to look at, and some were looking. But the more troubling information did not surface until it was too late. For instance, Mr. Kerik had social ties to the owner of a construction company suspected of mob connections. The company, which employed his brother and his best man, was investigated by the city's Department of Investigation before Mr. Kerik became police commissioner, when it was seeking a city license in 2000. The department learned of Mr. Kerik's connections and questioned him. Mr. Giuliani says he would still have made Mr. Kerik police commissioner if he had known about his link to the company, but maintains that he did not. If the former mayor did not know the findings of his own administration's investigative agency, which was headed by his own commissioner, why didn't he? It was out of character. Mr. Giuliani, a former prosecutor who ran a proudly top-down government, was closely involved in anything that touched on criminal justice and organized crime. Mr. Kerik's personal links to that construction company might not have influenced his appointment, but they might at least have given the mayor pause, and led him to ask a question or two of his former chauffeur. If Mr. Giuliani was truly ignorant of that case and the other messy complications in Mr. Kerik's life, it follows that those who should have informed him did not. Maybe they insulated him, or looked the other way, or were persuaded that the matter was not important enough to go to the top. Why risk hurting someone close to the sun? This is human nature, common in most professions (journalism included), and particularly prevalent in politics, in which loyalty is currency and people learn to separate the Ins from the Outs. Currying favor by echoing the boss's views, of people or issues, is hardly uncommon, from City Hall to the White House. THE president first met Mr. Kerik at ground zero and was impressed with him, and Mr. Kerik returned the favor. He campaigned for Mr. Bush, spoke glowingly of him at the Republican National Convention and evidently was a hit. But Mr. Bush may have based his appointment more on style than on substance. Mr. Kerik's tenure as police commissioner was dominated by Sept. 11 and by Mr. Giuliani, and background details were elusive. For instance, after Sept. 11, Mr. Kerik failed to get high security clearance from the F.B.I. because he never returned a bureau questionnaire. (He does not remember receiving the papers, a spokeswoman said.) But there is no evidence that the F.B.I. ever insisted on his returning the questionnaire, no sign the bureau ever blew the whistle. Despite the post-Sept. 11 climate of caution, despite the fears and the terror alerts, the former commissioner even wound up going to Baghdad for the White House without filling out a financial disclosure form that might have revealed some of his difficulties. It's not clear whether the oversights were signs of sloppiness, flawed judgment, bad timing or favored treatment. They do, though, reveal something quite unexpected: The Giuliani City Hall and Bush White House, with their shared fondness for political fealty, turn out to have a lot in common. Who would have thought it? City Denies That It Asked Judge to Seal Kerik's Answers in Suit By Jim Dwyer The New York Times December 16, 2004 Last week, before the collapse of Bernard B. Kerik's nomination for director of homeland security, the City Law Department obtained an order from a magistrate judge that sealed Mr. Kerik's answers to questions in a federal discrimination lawsuit that could have proved embarrassing to him. Now, after Mr. Kerik has withdrawn from consideration, and his personal and professional life has attracted news coverage, the Law Department denies that it had anything to do with sealing the records last week, and said the magistrate had taken the initiative to do so. The judge said he was responding to the city's request. The lawsuit was brought by Eric H. DeRavin III, a former assistant deputy warden for the city's Department of Correction, who claims that while Mr. Kerik was the correction commissioner, he refused to promote Mr. DeRavin because he had disciplined Jeanette Pinero, a correction officer who was romantically involved with Mr. Kerik. The city settled a similar lawsuit with another correction official last year for $250,000. That lawsuit involved a claim that a promotion had been denied to the official because he had taken disciplinary action against a correction officer who was close to Mr. Kerik's girlfriend. Mr. Kerik had answered questions under oath about the relationship last Thursday, and Ms. Pinero was deposed on Tuesday. The magistrate judge, Kevin N. Fox, said he did not want the parties to discuss what had happened in the depositions until he had a chance to review the transcripts. Judge Fox said he was acting in response to a request by city lawyers. "Their basic premise was that it was embarrassing," said Gregory Lisi, a lawyer for Mr. DeRavin. A lawyer for the city, Georgia Pestana, said the city had tried to seal the deposition before Mr. Kerik was nominated for President Bush's cabinet, but maintained that the decision to seal the records last week was a result of "improper questions" asked by Mr. Lisi. "Given the personal questions that they were being asked at the depositions, the federal magistrate - on his own initiative - ordered the transcripts of both Pinero and Kerik's deposition sealed," Ms. Pestana said. Mystery Woman in Kerik Case: Nanny By Nina Bernstein and Robin Stein The New York Times December 16, 2004 One secret after another has tumbled out since the collapse of Bernard B. Kerik's nomination as homeland security secretary - an undisclosed marriage, clandestine love affairs, unsavory business ties and unreported gifts. In brief sidewalk interviews, Mr. Kerik himself has been willing to talk in general terms about reports suggesting intimate transgressions. His associates, including former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, have also publicly addressed the growing list of reported ethical and legal problems in Mr. Kerik's past. Yet six days after Mr. Kerik withdrew his nomination, citing "questions about the immigration status of a person who had been in my employ," the figure central to the scandal - the nanny - remains a complete mystery. The White House has been unwilling to discuss any specifics of the nanny herself, including whether anyone in the administration had asked Mr. Kerik for details about her identity, status or nationality. Answers were not forthcoming from Mr. Kerik's camp, either. "We are not going to discuss the nanny any further," said Christopher Rising, general counsel at Giuliani-Kerik L.L.C., who is acting as a spokesman for Mr. Kerik. Among the unanswered questions are where she came from, and even whether she was actually working in the country illegally when Mr. Kerik said she served as a housekeeper and nanny for his two small daughters. In a statement last Friday announcing his withdrawal, Mr. Kerik said he had "uncovered information that now leads me to question the immigration status" of someone who worked for him. None of this means that the mysterious nanny could not emerge from the shadows tomorrow to speak on television talk shows. At least one of Mr. Kerik's neighbors in New Jersey was able to describe the woman yesterday. A neighbor who lives next door to the Keriks in Franklin Lakes, N.J., said that until a few weeks ago she would see a woman she believed to be the nanny playing ball with the two Kerik children in a side yard. But even that neighbor, who described the children's playmate as a young, olive-skinned woman who did not drive, had never met the woman or learned where she came from. The neighbor spoke on the condition of anonymity. But many others have either been reluctant or unable to talk about her, including other nannies in the neighborhood, relatives of Mr. Kerik's wife, Hala, even Mr. Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina. Mr. Tacopina, who has also been fielding calls from the press on Mr. Kerik's behalf, said he knows nothing about the nanny's identity, the length of her employment or even her nationality, despite news reports that she was Mexican that were mistakenly attributed to him. "I never met her," he said. "I don't know what country she came from. I don't know her nationality. I don't know her name." Pressed, he added, "I know she's not a phantom, because a document was applied for and received." The document to which Mr. Tacopina referred is itself secret, however. A registration form that New Jersey requires of employers of household workers, state officials said, it was issued to Mr. Kerik on Nov. 17, shortly before President Bush announced his nomination, and its contents are private - including the name and Social Security number listed for the employee in question. Mr. Tacopina said that he had not prepared or seen the documents - withholding-tax forms and a report on wages paid - but that he believed they had been filed "in conjunction with the paying of the taxes." Mr. Kerik's statement withdrawing his name alluded to such belated tax payments, noting that he had "already initiated efforts to fulfill any outstanding reporting requirements and tax obligations related to this issue." Mr. Tacopina said the taxes were not paid at first because Mr. Kerik "had an accountant handling his finances. When he did the proper state paperwork for the nanny, the taxes were already in the process of being rectified." He said the nanny recently returned to her own country, but he could not supply a date or a destination. Last night, Mr. Kerik was told that skeptics in city government circles were questioning the very existence of the nanny, and he was pressed to provide any kind of evidence to document that she was real. But after taking time to consider the request, Mr. Kerik again decided to remain silent on the subject. Most puzzled about the nanny, perhaps, are former neighbors of the Keriks and their kin. In the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where the family lived in a first-floor apartment for years before moving last year into the Franklin Lakes home they had extensively renovated, neighbors did not recall any household help. One neighbor, Dennis Doyle, noted that Mr. Kerik's wife, Hala Matli Kerik, a former dental hygienist, not only seemed to care for Celine, now 4, by herself, but that she did her own laundry as well. In the blue-collar neighborhood of Elmwood Park, N.J., where Mrs. Kerik's mother, Zakia, lived in a rented duplex for years, neighbors reacted with surprise to questions about a nanny, and said that Mrs. Kerik's mother had moved into the Kerik home about a year ago. "They never came around here with a nanny," said Sophie Borsuk, 55, the longtime landlady and downstairs neighbor of Mrs. Kerik's mother. "I never saw any nanny. This is the first time I heard about a nanny." But in Franklin Lakes, a town of vast lawns and winding driveways, nannies are practically an expected status symbol, according to the owners of nanny agencies that serve the area, all of which denied supplying the Keriks with a nanny. "He had to have known the status of his nanny," said Christine Sandrib, who has operated Nannies N More for 14 years. "If she's illegal, anybody in his position had to have known." Like Christy Ann Bozanian, owner of A Better Nanny, Ms. Sandrib stressed that an agency was responsible for determining that any employee it placed was legal. Their own agencies require a green card or work authorization as well as a criminal background check. Both said the demand for legal, thoroughly vetted nannies had risen dramatically in recent years. "In particular post 9/11, there's a greater concern about knowing who is in their home," Ms. Sandrib said. "This neighborhood is full of attorneys, physicians, people involved in politics at some sort of a level. They're not interested in illegal candidates. An educated person should know to ask for that." Paying Social Security taxes and workers' compensation is another story, they said. "I provide every family with information about payroll taxes, and the agency to call," Ms. Bozanian said. "What they do with that is up to them." Ms. Sandrib estimated that 99 percent of nannies, legal or not, were paid off the books. They said that legal, agency-placed nannies commanded higher wages - about $450 a week for a live in, compared with as little as $275 for those without legal status. Christie Denicola, another neighbor of the Keriks, declared in a defiant tone that she is raising her three children without a nanny. She said she never noticed a housekeeper at the Keriks'. But she added, "There was a lot of family over there visiting," and that she would not have been able to distinguish a nanny from the relatives. The picture of the Keriks that emerged was of an extended family transplanted suddenly from modest surroundings to great wealth. Joseph Kerik, 19, Mr. Kerik's son by what he has now revealed was his second marriage, also was living in the Kerik mansion while working for Jerry Speziale, the Passaic County sheriff and a close friend of Mr. Kerik's. He is now in training at the Passaic County Police Academy and did not respond to messages left there for him yesterday. In his biography, "The Lost Son," Mr. Kerik said that his wife, Hala, now 35, is part of a close-knit Syrian Christian family and arrived in the United States at 14. Family members of hers reached by phone - Mona Matli, of Oldsmar, Fla., and Reem Matli Safar, of Maywood, N.J. - politely declined to say anything when asked about the nanny. Rachel Metz, Josh Benson and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting for this article.

Apartment Said to Have Been Scene of a Kerik Affair

By Charles V. Bagli
The New York Times
December 15, 2004

Frances Roberts for The New York Times The apartment building in Battery Park City that was used by Mr. Kerik, and where he is said to have met with Judith Regan, his publisher.

An apartment in Battery Park City that former Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik secured for his personal use after Sept. 11 was originally donated for the use of weary police and rescue workers who were helping at ground zero, according to a real estate executive who has been briefed about the apartment.

After the cleanup had settled into a routine that fall, the executive said, Mr. Kerik, who was still police commissioner, asked to rent the two-bedroom apartment for his own use. During his use of the apartment, Mr. Kerik and Judith Regan engaged in an extramarital affair there, according to someone who spoke to Mr. Kerik about the relationship. Ms. Regan published his best-selling autobiography in 2001.

Rescue workers were combing through the World Trade Center rubble around the clock when Mr. Kerik called Anthony Bergamo, a well-connected vice chairman of the Milstein family real estate company and a police buff, and asked for help finding a place for the workers to rest during breaks, the executive said.

The family owned Liberty View, a 28-story yellow brick tower two blocks southwest of the trade center at the corner of West Street and Third Place.

According to the executive, who knows Mr. Bergamo, the vice chairman arranged for Mr. Kerik to have the use of an apartment there. Several apartments in the buildings had been used by rescue workers on breaks, and by Red Cross staff who were treating them, in the months after 9/11, according to a real estate executive.

Mr. Bergamo, founder of the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation, which raises money to help families of injured or slain F.B.I. agents, is a well-known figure among law enforcement officers for his interest in all things related to policing. He was made an honorary police commissioner several years ago by Police Commissioner Howard Safir.

Mr. Bergamo is licensed by the Police Department to carry a Colt .45 handgun and two Smith & Wesson handguns, a .38-caliber revolver and a 9-millimeter pistol, the police said. He has renewed the license repeatedly over the last decade or so, the police said.

According to the executive, Mr. Kerik "went to Bergamo asking for an apartment for emergency service workers."

It is unclear exactly who used the apartment and for how long, but after the cleanup of the site settled into a routine, the executive said Mr. Kerik "said he wanted to rent the apartment." Mr. Bergamo rented it to him. Mr. Kerik paid for use of the apartment, but the amount was not clear. Many apartments that were available in Battery Park City after the attack on the trade center were rented at well below market rates for months afterward.

After taking the apartment, Mr. Kerik, who is married with two children and lived at the time in Riverdale, the Bronx, began to meet there with Ms. Regan, said the person who spoke to Mr. Kerik about the matter.

That person said that one bedroom faced the pit of ground zero, and that Ms. Regan visited it while Mr. Kerik was police commissioner, meaning between Sept. 11 and Dec. 31, 2001. Mr. Kerik refused to answer any questions yesterday regarding the apartment.

Ms. Regan, like Mr. Bergamo, received an honorary badge on Dec. 31, 2001, this one from Mr. Kerik himself. It was Mr. Kerik's last day as police commissioner.

Questions have been raised in the past about the tradition of bestowing these ceremonial badges, and whether they create the appearance that those who receive them are in debt to those who grant them. Bearers of the shields are not to become involved in law enforcement activities.

Many residents of the apartment tower said this week that they were unaware of Mr. Kerik's presence, although one man who requested anonymity said that he boarded an elevator six months ago with him. "I said to myself, 'Hey, that's Bernie Kerik,' " the man recalled. "It was surprising. But then I thought, well, maybe he keeps a place down here because he's involved with security and 9/11."

Contacted at the annual Milstein holiday party at the New York Public Library on Monday night, Mr. Bergamo declined to comment and had a reporter escorted out of the building.

Several people who know him describe Mr. Bergamo, who once ran the Milstein family's Milford Plaza Hotel, as a police buff, a man who is fascinated by law enforcement officers. In 1987, he was one of the founders of the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation, whose board included Ronald Perelman, chairman of Revlon, and Tommy Mottola, the music executive.

Mr. Bergamo told Newsday last fall that each member must contribute or raise $30,000 for the foundation. Some members, like Mr. Bergamo, Mr. Perelman and Mr. Mottola, were made honorary police commissioners and given badges. The group also issued parking placards like those used by the New York police.

Several years ago, Mr. Bergamo undertook an assignment for his boss, Howard Milstein, in connection with a $100 million lawsuit filed by Mr. Milstein against John Kent Cooke, the former owner of the Washington Redskins, over the developer's failed attempt to buy the football team.

Posing as "Anthony Burke" and using a hidden tape recorder, Mr. Bergamo arranged to bump into Mr. Cooke and the former Redskins general manager, Charley Casserly, during a trip to Bermuda in an effort to elicit damaging information.

He did not obtain any incriminating statements, but he did chalk up over $6,500 in expenses.

Missteps Cited in Kerik Vetting by White House

By Elisabeth Bumiller
The New York Times
December 15, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 - Despite hours of confrontational interviews by the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, the Bush administration failed to get a full picture of the legal and ethical problems of Bernard B. Kerik, its nominee for homeland security secretary, a government official said on Tuesday.

In addition, the White House did not consult with the one person in the West Wing who knew the most about Mr. Kerik's background, Frances Townsend, because Ms. Townsend, President Bush's adviser on homeland security and a former federal prosecutor in New York, was under consideration for the position herself, said the official, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Those problems, law enforcement officials and Republicans said, were just two of the factors that led to the collapse of the Kerik nomination and surprised a White House focused on changing more than half the cabinet.

The story of Mr. Kerik's nomination is one of how a normally careful White House faltered because of Mr. Bush's personal enthusiasm for Mr. Kerik, a desire by the administration to quickly fill a critical national security job and an apparent lack of candor from Mr. Kerik himself.

A Republican close to the White House who has participated in background reviews of presidential nominees said the fault lay both with Mr. Kerik and with "whoever's job it was to check him out."

A major problem, law enforcement officials said, was that the White House did not have the benefit of any F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Kerik's past. Mr. Kerik, as New York City's police commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, had been offered a high security clearance by federal officials so he could receive classified intelligence about the city's security, a law enforcement official said. But he failed to return a questionnaire needed for the F.B.I. to conduct a background check, and he never received that clearance, the law enforcement official said.

Mr. Kerik said on Tuesday night through his spokesman, Christopher Rising, that he could not remember receiving the questionnaire. Mr. Kerik still received classified information from the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. regarding security issues in New York, the law enforcement official said, although the police commissioner was not given the most sensitive intelligence about the sources of the data. He served as police commissioner through the end of 2001.

Mr. Kerik also failed to complete a required federal financial disclosure form in May 2003, when he left the country to spend three and a half months in Iraq trying to train Iraqi police officers, a law enforcement official said. The disclosure form, law enforcement officials said, might have turned up some of the financial problems that surfaced this month in connection with a condominium he owned in New Jersey.

In addition, law enforcement officials said, Mr. Bush announced Mr. Kerik's nomination before the F.B.I. had begun the full field investigation required of all cabinet nominees. The officials said such an investigation would have readily uncovered the problems that doomed Mr. Kerik's nomination. The investigation was not done, administration officials said, because the Bush White House has generally not conducted such checks, which take numerous agents many weeks to complete, until after the president announces a nominee. A former White House official who has conducted background checks said that the Bush White House got into the habit during the abbreviated transition in 2000, when there was little time for investigating nominees.

The Clinton administration also waited on F.B.I. background checks, which caused a number of embarrassments. But the administrations of Ronald Reagan and the President Bush's father, for the most part, waited until an F.B.I. investigation was complete before the president announced a cabinet nominee.

White House officials said the counsel's office had conducted a less-comprehensive investigation of Mr. Kerik over several weeks in November, before the president announced his nomination, and that the White House was well aware that he had problems in his past, including a warrant for his arrest in connection with delinquent condominium fees.

Mr. Kerik was nominated by Mr. Bush on Dec. 3 but withdrew a week later, citing problems with a nanny who may have been in the country illegally and whose taxes he had not paid. Since then, Mr. Kerik has had to answer questions about his connections to a New Jersey company suspected of having ties to organized crime and his use of an apartment, donated as a resting spot for police officers at ground zero, where he conducted an affair with his book publisher, according to someone who discussed the relationship with him..

It is unclear exactly what the White House knew of Mr. Kerik's past. But aides there concluded that Mr. Kerik would be regarded as a "colorful" figure whose strong performance after the Sept. 11 attacks would propel him into office, one official said.

Mr. Gonzales, who is himself in the middle of a background review as Mr. Bush's nominee for attorney general, spent hours grilling Mr. Kerik, the official said. As with other nominees, the sessions were aggressive and designed to make Mr. Kerik uncomfortable enough to reveal possible embarrassing events in his record. Even so, he apparently withheld some pertinent facts. Mr. Gonzales declined to comment.

Throughout the process, the Republican close to the administration said, everyone at the White House knew that Mr. Bush liked Mr. Kerik, placing him in the special category of "this guy's our guy." Mr. Bush admired Mr. Kerik for his service as New York City's police commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, for his willingness to try to train the police force in Iraq and for campaigning tirelessly for the president's re-election.

As for problems in his past that might have derailed his nomination, Republicans noted that former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani was enthusiastically vouching for Mr. Kerik. And no one could imagine that the life of a former New York police chief was not already an open book.

Mr. Bush, who first met Mr. Kerik when the president went to the still-smoking ruins of the World Trade Center on Sept. 14, 2001, lavished praise on Mr. Kerik when the two stood side by side on the White House South Lawn in October 2003. The president had just met in the Oval Office with Mr. Kerik upon his return from Iraq.

Others criticized Mr. Kerik for seeming to focus more on seeking publicity than on expanding training programs for new Iraqi police officers. "He was terrific about inspiring people and creating a goal, but he was often not very good about following up and getting it done," one former American official who spent time in Baghdad said this month.

But Mr. Bush did not forget Mr. Kerik's time under fire, or his reflected glow from New York's response to the attacks on the city. By the fall of 2004, Mr. Kerik had become one of the symbols of the Bush campaign's fight against terrorism and traveled the nation spreading the message.

New Kerik Puzzler Broke, but He Bought Two Apts.

By Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
December 15, 2004

View of first-floor Riverdale apartment Bernard Kerik once owned. How does someone who's flat broke afford a sumptuous renovation of two Riverdale apartments? Ask Bernard Kerik. In 1999, Kerik had workers convert two first-floor apartments into one large home at the W. 239th St. building - even though he apparently was having trouble making ends meet in a single apartment upstairs. Months earlier, Kerik could not even pay for his November 1998 wedding reception, relying on his best man and another friend to cover much of the tab, the Daily News revealed Sunday. Despite his struggles, Kerik, then the city's Correction Department commissioner, managed to buy the two Bronx apartments in early 1999 - and then swung the costly renovation. Three sources who were in the apartment after the work was done said the conversion was opulent, with extensive marble and granite and a large rotunda entryway. Kerik, whose questionable past derailed his nomination as homeland security czar, was not talking yesterday. Aside from Kerik's inability to pay, the renovation raises other questions. The man listed as the contractor on the building permit, Ed Sisca of Englewood, N.J., had been indicted the week before in a massive bid-rigging scandal. He pleaded guilty in March 2000 and was sentenced to 4-1/2 years in prison. Sisca, 39, now works at Technical Construction of Fort Lee, N.J. Also, Sisca is the son of Gambino capo Alphonse (Funzi) Sisca, also of Englewood, who was partners with neighbor Arnold (Zeke) Squitieri. The two served 11 years in federal prison on a heroin distribution conviction. Squitieri once was listed in a New Jersey law enforcement report as the Garden State's top Gambino. And after the death of John Gotti, he was deemed the apparent successor. The engineer on Kerik's building permit was Charles Marino. Three months after the permit was filed, Marino was indicted for filing false documents with the city Department of Environmental Protection. Marino pleaded guilty in February 2001 and was sentenced to five years' probation. State education officials suspended his engineering license for three years, with the last two stayed, and he was fined $10,000. At the time he filed Kerik's permit, Marino was allowed to self-certify final inspections of work. He signed a "Statement of Responsibility" on June 29, 1999, that he would certify the work was done according to code, but he failed to sign off on the final inspection. Such a failure can lead to issuance of a violation from the city Buildings Department, said Ilyse Fink, a spokeswoman for the agency. No violation was issued in this case. According to city records, Interstate Industrial, a construction company linked to Kerik by Daily News revelations this week, did not work on the project. Interstate's owner, Frank DiTomasso, became fast friends with Kerik in late 1998. Interstate hired the best man from Kerik's wedding, Lawrence Ray, based upon Kerik's recommendation, and Kerik's brother, Don. At the renovated Riverdale apartment yesterday, a man said, "We can't say anything" from behind a closed door, even before a question was asked. A woman later answered a phone inside and hung up. With Ralph R. Ortega Kerik's Last-minute Scramble to File Nanny Papers By Deborah Orin The New York Post December 15, 2004 WASHINGTON — Former NYPD top cop Bernard Kerik didn't file any paperwork or pay any taxes for his family's Mexican nanny until shortly before he was tapped to be President Bush's homeland-security chief, The Post has learned. A New Jersey business-registration form, which he had to file as her employer, was issued to Kerik on Nov. 17 — just over two weeks before Bush nominated him on Dec. 3, according to documents Kerik supplied to The Post. The form lists its effective date as Nov. 2. It was previously known that Kerik didn't file nanny forms until this fall — but not that he waited until just weeks before his nomination, when the rumor mill was heavily touting him as a possible homeland security chief. A Kerik friend said the delay was "a careless mistake" and denied that the form was hastily filed because Kerik felt he had a chance to get the job. The friend said the illegal nanny left the United States a few days before Kerik's Dec. 3 nomination. The friend denied that the nanny left the country to avoid embarrassing Kerik, saying she had purchased her plane tickets a month earlier. But that would suggest that Kerik knew the nanny was about to return to Mexico when he filed the tax papers. When Kerik filed the forms, he also paid the nanny's Social Security taxes dating back to last February when his family moved to New Jersey, but didn't pay any back taxes for the time they lived in New York, the friend added. Kerik withdrew last Friday, a week after he was nominated, touching off questions over his Nannygate problems, business dealings, gifts and allegations he had two affairs. Kerik didn't realize that he needed to file forms for the nanny until an acquaintance told him in September, his friend said. "He was told that in New Jersey you need to do this and he said, 'I never did that,' and it took him a month and a half to finally do it," the friend said. He said Kerik filed a four-page application form including the nanny's name and the Social Security number that she gave him and assumed that she was legal when he got back the registration form from the state. Channel 2 News reported last night that Kerik took over an apartment donated for use by Ground Zero workers, and converted the Battery Park City digs into a love nest for his affair with his book publisher, Judith Regan. Kerik rented the property from the Milstein family, which declined comment, the station said.

Inquiry of Kerik in '00 Puts Focus on Vetting Issue

By Eric Lipton and William K. Rashbaum
The New York Times
December 14, 2004

In June 2000, two months before Bernard B. Kerik was appointed police commissioner, New York City's top investigative agency learned that he had a social relationship with the owner of a New Jersey construction company suspected of having business ties to organized crime figures, city documents show.

In two days of testimony before the city's Department of Investigation, the owner of the company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, spoke frequently of Mr. Kerik as he tried to establish why his company was reputable enough to do business with the city.

The company's security director, Lawrence Ray, had just been charged with stock fraud. Asked why he had hired him in 1998, the owner, Frank DiTommaso, said he did so in part because Mr. Kerik had vouched for him. Mr. DiTommaso also detailed his social relationship with Mr. Kerik, who was then the city's correction commissioner, and mentioned that he had employed Donald Kerik, the commissioner's brother.

Those disclosures, none of which indicate that Mr. Kerik did anything illegal or improper, did prompt city investigators to formally interview Mr. Kerik, city officials said. It is unclear, though, what Mr. Kerik told investigators about his relationship with Mr. DiTommaso and his company.

A spokesman for the Department of Investigation declined to comment yesterday when asked whether any of the information concerning Mr. Kerik and Interstate Industrial had been shared at the time with any other city officials.

But Rudolph W. Giuliani said in an interview yesterday that none of those facts were brought to his attention in August 2000 when, as mayor, he appointed Mr. Kerik as New York's top police official. And there is no indication that the White House was aware of the findings before it nominated the Mr. Kerik to take over the Department of Homeland Security on Dec. 3, a nomination that has now been withdrawn.

"I didn't get to consider it then," Mr. Giuliani said, "and I did not know much about it all until this confirmation process started for homeland security."

Mr. Giuliani said he did not believe any of the revelations he had heard would have changed his mind on Mr. Kerik's appointment.

But the fact that neither Mr. Giuliani nor the White House had learned of Mr. Kerik's dealings with Mr. DiTommaso, or of the city investigation that at least briefly explored those ties, would appear to highlight the vulnerabilities in background checks that are made of government officials, including those poised to serve in some of the most high-profile posts in the city and the nation.

The White House said yesterday that its check into Mr. Kerik's past had actually been more extensive than officials had indicated earlier. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said that the review had gone on for weeks' before Mr. Bush nominated Mr. Kerik. On Sunday, a senior administration official said the review had taken only a week.

There were also indications that Mr. Kerik may have been under consideration for the job of homeland security secretary as early as the summer. A former city official said Mr. Kerik went to Washington twice in August to meet with White House officials about his views on domestic security. One of the officials was Frances Townsend, who is President Bush's domestic security adviser and a longtime friend of Mr. Giuliani's.

Two senior Giuliani administration officials who were involved in the deliberations over the selection of the police commissioner in 2000 said in interviews on Monday that they, too, had not known about the information involving Mr. Kerik and Interstate. But they added that the Department of Investigation often shared such findings only with the mayor and the city's top lawyer.

"The question is, what did the mayor know?" the former city official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he now works in the private sector. "It should have been reported to him by the Department of Investigation. The mayor should have been told about it. And he should have considered it."

For now, then, it appears that the questions raised several years ago about Mr. Kerik and his relations with Interstate surfaced only after he had been nominated for the cabinet post and just a few days before he announced he was withdrawing his nomination.

Mr. Kerik last Friday withdrew his name after in a telephone call to President Bush after, he said, he realized that he had not paid taxes on behalf of his housekeeper and that she appeared to be in the United States illegally. The identity and whereabouts of the nanny have not been released, although Mr. Kerik has said that she has left the United States.

Mr. Kerik has not disputed that he knows Interstate's owner, Mr. DiTommaso. And yesterday he questioned whether Mr. DiTommaso has had any established ties to organized crime.

"I know there's been a lot written about him," Mr. Kerik said of Mr. DiTommaso on Monday, in an interview with NY1 cable television news. "I personally know him to be a good man and I don't know about any connections with him and organized crime."

Mr. DiTommaso has never been charged with any crime.

Earlier this year, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission granted the company a license to do work on Atlantic City casinos after considering the accusations of mob connections. But the decision has been appealed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.

New York City, on the other hand, recommended denying the company a license to operate a transfer station in Staten Island earlier this year, citing the company's dealings with organized crime figures and concluding that its officials "lack the character, honesty and integrity required."

Interstate's application for a license has been pending since 1996 and became a particular topic of interest in June 2000, just weeks after the best man at Mr. Kerik's wedding, Lawrence Ray, was indicted on racketeering charges unrelated to the company.

During two days of testimony, city officials asked Mr. DiTommaso how and why he had come to hire Mr. Ray as a $100,000 a year security director. Mr. DiTommaso told the city investigators that Mr. Ray, with whom, he said, he had had a previous unsatisfactory business relationship, had told him that he knew top New York law enforcement officials, including Mr. Kerik, and Mr. DiTommaso thought he might help with their licensing problems.

He told investigators that he then spoke to Mr. Kerik, who told him Mr. Ray was a "top shelf guy," according to his deposition. "I just remember him telling me, Larry Ray 100 percent."

Over time, Mr. DiTommaso told investigators, he and Mr. Kerik developed their own relationship. Mr. Kerik invited Mr. DiTommaso to his Christmas Party in 1998 and the company executive said he would stop by occasionally when he was in New York to visit the commissioner.

"I liked Bernie," he told the city investigators. "I thought he was a pretty interesting guy. Still do."

Mr. DiTommaso also told investigators that he had hired a security company run by a former police boss of Mr. Kerik's and that he employed Donald Kerik, although he did not specifically identify him as Bernard Kerik's brother.

Norman Dion, one of the city investigators who interviewed Mr. DiTommaso, declined comment yesterday on whether the information was forwarded to his superiors at the department. It is not clear that city investigators ever learned that Mr. Ray, the best man at Mr. Kerik's 1998 wedding, contends he helped pay $7,000 for the affair or that Mr. Kerik, according to a city official, vouched for his friend to the city agency that was considering Interstate's license application.

Elisabeth Bumiller, Christopher Drew and Kevin Flynn contributed reporting for this article.

Egg-on-face Rudy Still in Bush's Good Graces

By Ian Bishop
New York Post
December 14, 2004

WASHINGTON — President Bush is giving Rudy Giuliani a pass for pushing scandal-scarred former top cop Bernard Kerik as homeland-security chief, and the pols are still "very good friends," the White House says.

"I know Mayor Giuliani has expressed his apologies, but I don't think the president viewed that one was necessary," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said after Giuliani personally apologized to Bush on Sunday night.

Giuliani went with hat in hand to deliver a mea culpa to the president during an annual Washington Christmas gala, followed by a holiday dinner at the White House that was planned weeks before Kerik's nomination imploded.

Giuliani and his wife, Judith, rode with Bush and First Lady Laura in the presidential limousine from the gala back to the White House and sat at Bush's own table for the dinner.

"The president views Mayor Giuliani as a very good friend," McClellan said, adding that "the president has a great relationship" with America's Mayor.

The White House claimed Giuliani's ill-advised recommendation of Kerik did little to wipe out the good will he built as a high-profile campaigner for the president's re-election.

While embracing Giuliani, the White House scolded Kerik for initially failing to reveal baby-sitting problems that have exploded into the Nannygate scandal that derailed his nomination.

Bernie Cops to Trysts
'Very Close' to Publisher & Correx Officer, He Sez

By Russ Buettner
New York Daily News
December 14, 2004

Bernie Kerik talks to reporters yesterday about accounts of his infidelities. Sources say that Bernard Kerik met his lovers, including publishing powerhouse Judith Regan , in a suite similar to this posh unit in Liberty View complex at 99 Battery Place.   Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik all but admitted having affairs with two women, as the fallout from his failed bid to become homeland security czar continued to explode yesterday. The women - publishing tycoon Judith Regan and Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero - were simultaneously involved in extramarital affairs with Kerik, sources told the Daily News. In the harrowing weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Kerik romanced both women at a secret Battery Park City apartment, according to the sources, who have intimate knowledge of the liaisons. As the women kept silent yesterday, Kerik held an impromptu press conference outside the Times Square offices of his friend and business partner Rudy Giuliani. Wearing a Yankees cap, Kerik, 49, acknowledged "very close" relationships with both women. "We had a very close relationship," Kerik said of Pinero. "She is someone who worked for the Department of Correction. I've been friends with her ever since. During the time of that relationship, she was separated. I was not married." Kerik's lawyer has told The News that Kerik's "friendship" with Pinero ended in 1996. But the sources insisted the affair carried on through 2001. "With regard to Judith Regan," Kerik continued, "most of you know Judith Regan published my book. She was not only extremely professional, she was very close to me. "We had a close relationship. I'm not going to get into the details of either of those. I think that's my personal business." Kerik also insisted a federal lawsuit claiming he had punished a correction employee who crossed Pinero would be dismissed. The city last year settled a suit making similar claims for $250,000. Regan, head of her own multimillion-dollar publishing and television empire, left town early yesterday on a planned business trip, sources close to her said. The trip kept the attractive 51-year-old mother of two away from the throngs of television cameras outside her office. Pinero also was missing from her job yesterday, according to department sources, and was believed to be spending time with her husband of many years. He has vowed to stand by his wife. Giuliani said only Kerik could answer questions about his personal relationships. "I have confidence in Bernie," the ex-mayor said. In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Giuliani's ill-advised sponsorship of Kerik for the post - which the former mayor apologized for on Sunday - would not affect his relationship with President Bush. "The President views Mayor Giuliani as a very good friend," McClellan said. "I know Mayor Giuliani has expressed his apologies, but I don't think the President viewed that one was necessary." Kerik said the scandals surrounding his failed nomination have taken a toll on the family. "It's a difficult time," he said. "You know, you want to attack me, attack me. Don't attack my family." All this came after The News reported Kerik's torrid affairs, his failure to report thousands of dollars in gifts during his years in office and his links to a construction company with alleged mob ties. Asked about The News' findings, Mayor Bloomberg suggested that Kerik could be facing renewed scrutiny. Giuliani said he would talk to Kerik about his best man and brother working for an allegedly mob-connected company. "Well, I think that's something I'll explore, you know, privately with Bernie," Giuliani said. Bloomberg, who briefly flirted with keeping Kerik as police commissioner before deciding on Raymond Kelly, was asked if he was happy with his choice. "Happy is an understatement," Bloomberg quipped, drawing an outburst of guffaws from reporters. "I chose the right guy." With David Saltonstall, Nancy Dillon and Kenneth R. Bazinet

Mrs. Kerik Mum on Straying Hubby

By Dave Goldiner
New York Daily News
December 14, 2004

Then-NYPD boss Bernard Kerik with his wife, Hala, on Election Day 2000. She has not addressed his dalliances. Bernard Kerik's future wife won his heart by arguing with him over his teeth. Hala Matli, an immigrant from Syria, was managing a dentist's office when she found herself repeatedly sparring with a busy patient who never seemed to be able to keep an appointment. The patient was a city correction official - namely, Kerik. "We despised each other," Kerik wrote in his autobiography, "The Lost Son." "It was a running battle between us, me skipping appointments, her pointing out how inconsiderate I was." But through the frosty exchanges, Kerik saw "a beautiful fair-skinned woman who was bright and sweet." The couple wound up dating and Hala Kerik, now 35, has stuck by her man ever since. She kept a stoic silence yesterday after the Daily News reported that her husband cheated on her with two women. Kerik, 49, wrote that one of the toughest grillings he has seen was the grilling he took from Hala's uncles, anxious to determine if he was the right man for her. He eventually proposed by getting a waiter to bring a wedding ring on a silver platter during a romantic waterside dinner. They were married in a plush ceremony on Nov. 1, 1998, at a sumptuous New Jersey catering hall. The News reported the gala apparently was paid for by wealthy pals, but Kerik did not disclose the gift, as required. The next summer, Kerik wrote that his new wife was acting moody during a vacation with friends in the Spanish resort island of Majorca. When they got back, she told him she was pregnant with the first of their two daughters. "On that day, my life felt complete," Kerik wrote.

            Strain Is Seen in Giuliani Ties With President

By Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Lipton
The New York Times
December 13, 2004

WASHINGTON - Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani had a Christmas dinner at the White House on Sunday night, and he attended with an important goal in mind: to apologize to his host for pushing Bernard B. Kerik as homeland security secretary and then watching as Mr. Kerik's nomination collapsed in legal problems and embarrassed the president of the United States.

That embarrassment has put a new strain on a mutually beneficial relationship that has always been more complicated than mere friendship.

"I feel very bad," Mr. Giuliani said in a telephone interview on Sunday afternoon, adding that he felt somewhat responsible for the nomination of Mr. Kerik, who withdrew his name on Friday because he had failed to pay taxes for a nanny who was in the country illegally.

"Even though there was never a conversation about it, I realize that one of the reasons they did it was because of my confidence in Bernie over the years," he said. "And I feel like maybe I should have involved myself more in it."

Mr. Giuliani added that he did not think the situation would hurt his relationship with President Bush or the White House. "It doesn't and shouldn't affect my feelings toward them, and I don't think it will affect their feelings toward me," he said. "We're friends."

The view at the White House is somewhat different. Although people close to the president say he likes and respects Mr. Giuliani, they say the president has long been leery of him as a man who could not be counted on for the loyalty demanded by Mr. Bush. And while the breakdown of Mr. Kerik's nomination is not lethal to Mr. Giuliani's relationship with the White House, the friends and officials say, it will hardly burnish his credentials with the president.

"It hurts him politically, so therefore by extension it's going to hurt him with the White House," said a Republican close to the administration who has worked for both Mr. Bush and Mr. Giuliani and who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the situation. "Nobody at the White House is saying to themselves, 'Damn that Rudy Giuliani.' It's more, 'Well, he got his licks.' "

In the interview, Mr. Giuliani indicated that he should have known about Mr. Kerik's legal problems because he had named him police commissioner and then had gone into business with him. The former mayor seemed to suggest as much in a phone call on Saturday morning to Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff.

"I said, 'Well, I wish I had figured it out earlier,' " Mr. Giuliani said. "That's what I was apologizing for, that we hadn't figured this out earlier. And Andy said something like, 'Well, Bernie just focused on it you know, this is a very difficult process.' They were very nice about it."

Suzy DeFrancis, a White House spokeswoman, said on Sunday: "I'm sure Rudy Giuliani is held in high respect at the White House and among the American people as well. He's a great supporter of the president."

The invitation to the Christmas dinner, in fact, came well before Mr. Kerik's nomination.

Mr. Giuliani and his wife were also overnight guests during the campaign at the president's 1,600-acre ranch in Texas, an invitation the president reserves for prime ministers, heads of state and his closest friends. The sleepover, Republicans said, was both a thank-you for Mr. Giuliani's tireless campaigning and a reflection of the president's political need to publicly associate himself with the man who rallied New York after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"If the war on terror is your campaign's number one issue, there's no better symbol of that than Rudy Giuliani," said a government official who knows Mr. Bush and Mr. Giuliani and who asked not to be identified because he did not want to be seen as denigrating the mayor's relationship with the president. "But you shouldn't confuse that with closeness."

Mr. Giuliani said in the interview that he could not recall when he met Mr. Bush, but said he first spent significant time with him on a trip to Austin, Tex., in the fall of 1999. Mr. Giuliani, then mayor, was close to running for the Senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Mr. Bush, then governor, would soon be running in the Republican primaries against Senator John McCain of Arizona.

"I went to visit him because I was trying to decide who to support - John McCain, who I knew really well, who was a good friend, or Governor Bush, who I didn't know as well, but I thought had a better chance of winning," Mr. Giuliani said.

The mayor ended up endorsing the better bet, Mr. Bush. But during the Republican primary in New York the following March, he barely appeared in public at the side of Mr. Bush, who was fresh from his embrace of religious conservatives in the South Carolina primary. Instead, Mr. Giuliani lavished praise on the independent-minded Mr. McCain. Mr. Giuliani's advisers worried at the time that if the mayor made too many appearances with Mr. Bush, he would alienate the Democrats and swing voters he needed to defeat Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Bush's advisers brushed off the mayor's brush-off as a necessity of New York politics.

But Republicans say that Mr. Bush felt little affection for Mr. Giuliani, and that he was particularly perplexed as the mayor allowed his personal life to unravel publicly in the spring of 2000.

"There aren't a lot of people close to the president who have those kind of experiences," said the Republican close to the administration, referring to Mr. Giuliani's admissions of infidelity with the woman who became his third wife and to his bitter split from his second wife, Donna Hanover.

"It's an issue of not understanding it. I've had discussions with him where he's asked, 'What's this guy all about?' "

But on the morning that two commercial airliners flew into the World Trade Center, a new relationship between the two men was forged. People close to Mr. Bush say he considers the mayor a true hero for his actions on that day and developed a bond with him in the aftermath. Mr. Giuliani readily agreed.

"He gave us immediately all the things that we needed," Mr. Giuliani recalled. "We got all the resources of the federal government put at our disposal, mine and the governor's."

Mr. Giuliani added: "He just told them, 'Give him everything he wants and make sure they have all the support that they need and put all your people right there and let's break down all the barriers."'

Since then, Mr. Giuliani has been repeatedly mentioned as a possibility for a cabinet position, although rarely, if ever, by anyone in the inner circle at the White House. Although the White House has noticed that Mr. Giuliani is far less combative than he was during his days at City Hall, a top administration official once noted that the former mayor would be good for any job that didn't require him to get along with people.

Advisers to Mr. Bush add that as Mr. Giuliani contemplates a run for president in 2008, there is virtually no chance he will be named to a position in the administration because he would have, they say, his own agenda.

As for Mr. Giuliani, he said he expected to soon have Mr. Kerik back in the Times Square offices of Giuliani Partners, where they have worked together since leaving city government at the end of 2001. The partnership, which is staffed by many of Mr. Giuliani's top former City Hall aides, will emerge from this debacle largely unscathed, Mr. Giuliani insisted.

Ultimately, Mr. Giuliani said, the most damaging part for him about the turn of events over the last two weeks is not the political implications.

"It is a personal embarrassment," he said. "I don't like making mistakes. This is something that could have been avoided."

Now His Double Affair Laid Bare Kerik Cheated on Wife with Judith Regan and Correction Officer By Russ Buettner New York Daily News December 13, 2004

Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik Judith Regan Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a secret Battery Park City apartment for the passionate liaisons, the Daily News has learned. The first relationship, spanning nearly a decade, was with city Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero; the second, and more startling, was with famed publishing titan Judith Regan. His affair with Regan, the stunningly attractive head of her own book publishing company, lasted for almost a year. Dramatically, each woman learned of the existence of the other after Pinero discovered a love note left by Regan in the apartment. The revelations about Kerik's private life come as repercussions over his suitability to be nominated for the post of secretary of homeland security. Kerik, 49, married with two children from his current marriage, withdrew his name from consideration in a sudden and unexpected call to the White House on Friday night. Kerik said that questions about the immigration status of his family's former nanny and failure to pay taxes prompted his decision to walk away from the job. But speculation has continued that there were deeper and more controversial reasons. Yesterday, The News reported that a six-month investigation showed Kerik had accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts without proper disclosure, and had ties to a construction company that investigators believe is linked to the mob. Now revelations about his private life also cast a shadow on his suitability for one of the administration's highest-profile cabinet positions. Asked about the affairs and the secret love nest yesterday, Joseph Tacopina, Kerik's attorney, said Kerik and Regan had denied the affair in the past. Tacopina said Kerik's "friendship" with Pinero ended in 1996. He would not comment on the apartment. Regan could not be reached for comment. But sources with intimate knowledge of both affairs painted a picture of passionate, and sometimes volatile, liaisons. The tumultuous Regan-Kerik romance carried on for months, through the writing, publication and promotion of his autobiography, "The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice," which Regan's company published. The two worked out together most mornings at the New York Sports Club in Rockefeller Center and often dined at Fresco restaurant in midtown, according to sources. Kerik visited Regan's Central Park West apartment almost daily, and occasionally stayed the night, with his police detail camped outside. They became so close that Kerik's two nieces stayed with Regan while the commissioner's sister was hospitalized, one source said. Regan visited the Battery Park apartment several times, the source said, but apparently never knew that his actual residence at that time was an apartment on E. 79th St. Furnished corporate rentals similar to the unit Kerik used, according to the sources, are advertised at monthly rents from $3,150 to $6,200. Representatives of Milstein Properties, whichs owns the Liberty View, could not be reached yesterday. After one encounter, Regan left a romantic note, which was later discovered by Pinero. The two later spoke on the phone. "She wanted to know if Judith was still seeing him," the source said. "She told Regan about their affair and Regan told her she was shocked." Many close to Kerik in the mid-1990s assumed that someday he would marry Pinero, a career correction officer described as spirited and attractive by friends, a close friend and a former high-ranking Correction Department source said. The relationship continued after Kerik married Hala Matli, a hygienist in his dentist's office whom he met in mid-1996 and wed in November 1998, according to multiple sources close to Pinero and Kerik. Kerik's affair with Pinero is at the center of two lawsuits against the city, both brought by correction employees who claimed Kerik retaliated after they crossed her. The city settled one last year for $250,000, The News reported at the time. The second suit, in which Pinero and Kerik were deposed last week, was filed by former Deputy Warden Eric DeRavin 3rd, who claims Kerik quashed his promotion after he reprimanded Pinero. The city demanded a gag order on both depositions. Pinero declined to comment. But sources with whom she has spoken said that on her trips to the Battery Park City apartment, Pinero was shuttled in through a side service door. "She's going to be my wife for as long we live. I support her 100%," said Pinero's husband, who asked that his name be withheld. Yesterday, Kerik remained at his $1.2 million home in Franklin Lakes, N.J. After announcing his decision to withdraw his name from the top homeland security post, he remained at the house over the weekend, emerging only twice to talk to media. On both occasions, he stressed that he had made the decision to withdraw his name from consideration solely on the basis of problems with the family nanny. He said he had realized on Wednesday evening that there were issues with the woman's immigration status and tax status. He added that he wanted to avoid any embarrassment to the President, with whom he had stood side-by-side at a press conference announcing his nomination just a week before. Kerik, who had a national profile after the events of 9/11, had been one of Bush's most enthusiastic public supporters during the election campaign. With Nancy Dillon                   Rudy Tells W He's Sorry for Brouhaha By James Gordon Meek and Kenneth R. Bazinet New York Daily News Washington Bureau December 13, 2004 WASHINGTON - Rudy Giuliani went to the White House last night and ate crow for dinner. The former mayor, invited to a Christmas-season celebration, apologized again to President Bush for the messy fallout from Bernard Kerik's nomination for homeland security secretary. "Rudy went there for dinner. He was invited weeks ago. While he was there, he apologized and the President was very gracious," Giuliani's spokeswoman, Sunny Mindel, told the Daily News. Lawmakers urged Bush yesterday to make his next Homeland Security pick someone who passes the smell test that Kerik failed miserably. White House chief counsel Alberto Gonzalez, the man tapped by President Bush to be the next Justice Department boss, headed the vetting process but never interviewed Kerik's book publisher-turned-gal pal Judith Regan, she told Newsweek. Regan's friends told the mag that after the relationship soured, she was hounded by Kerik, the city's former top cop, who is married with children. His lawyer denies those allegations. As the skeletons in Kerik's closet came rattling out, lawmakers urged the President to be more prudent this time around. "I think [Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security] Asa Hutchinson, who's done a terrific job, would be able to hit the ground running," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). "The other candidate that I have is Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.)." It's unusual for lawmakers like Collins, who heads the panel that will approve the homeland security pick, to publicly advise a President on the choice. Sens. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) backed her picks yesterday.

News Finds Kerik In Cash Conflict Got Thousands, Didn't Report it By Russ Buettner New York Daily News December 12, 2004

Bernard Kerik speaks at stately New Jersey home. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts without making proper public disclosures, a Daily News investigation has revealed. Kerik failed to report the gifts on financial disclosure forms he was required to file with the city as head of the both the NYPD and, before that, the Department of Correction. The revelations come in the wake of Kerik's stunning announcement Friday night that he was withdrawing his nomination as President Bush's secretary of homeland security. Kerik maintained yesterday that he pulled out on his own after discovering he may have failed to pay required taxes on behalf of a nanny whose immigration status was uncertain. However, his announcement came after a week of intense media scrutiny into his business and private life. As the White House scrambled yesterday to find a new nominee, a Bush spokeswoman blamed the mess on Kerik. "He should have brought this to our attention sooner," spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo said. But Kerik's friends came to the defense of NYPD's leader at the time of 9/11. "It doesn't take away from Bernie's heroism. It doesn't take away from his decency," said ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "He made a mistake. It cost him a job." In a news conference outside his $1.2 million lakeside New Jersey home, Kerik insisted it was the nanny issue alone that led him to withdraw. "Based on that, and based on precedent, and really it was the most important that this was the right thing to do, I contacted the White House late [Friday] afternoon and told them I would like to withdraw my name," Kerik said. However, The News probe calls into question his conduct while holding two of the city's most important public offices. The probe revealed that for many years, one of Kerik's main benefactors was Lawrence Ray, the best man at Kerik's 1998 wedding, according to Ray, other sources and checks shown by Ray to The News. Ray and another Kerik pal, restaurant owner Carmen Cabell, helped bankroll Kerik's 1998 wedding reception, contributing nearly $10,000. Ray also gave Kerik nearly $2,000 to buy a bejeweled Tiffany badge that Kerik coveted when he was Correction commissioner. And Ray said he gave Kerik $4,300 more to buy high-end Bellini furniture when Kerik allegedly griped that he couldn't afford to furnish a bedroom for a soon-to-be born daughter. The city's Conflicts of Interest Board requires officials to report any gifts of $1,000 or more. The board's definition of gifts includes cash, free travel, and wedding presents not given by relatives. Intentionally failing to report gifts is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of $1,000. The board also can impose civil fines of up to $10,000. The News has examined Kerik's disclosure forms and there is no record of any of the gifts for the period concerned. At the time of the gifts, Ray was working for Interstate Industrial, then a major city contractor. City ethics rules bar officials from accepting gifts worth more than $50 from anyone doing business with the city. The company hired Ray based on a recommendation from Kerik, according to a sworn deposition by Interstate's owner Frank DiTomasso. New Jersey gaming regulators said Kerik had confirmed to them that he had vouched for Ray. Kerik has run afoul of ethics rules before, having been fined $2,500 by the board for dispatching detectives to investigate his mother's death as part of the research for his best-selling memoir, "The Lost Son." Thanks to the fame he achieved standing next to Giuliani after Sept. 11, 2001, Kerik now enjoys tremendous wealth. He recently turned a profit of$5.5 million by selling stock options earned during his 18 months on the board of Taser, a company that makes controversial stun guns. But until his last year in public office, Kerik had money problems. He filed for bankruptcy in 1987 as a rookie city cop, when he earned $25,000 a year and had $11,782 in debt. By the time he became correction commissioner in January 1998, his only asset was a condo in New Jersey that had been in foreclosure throughout the 1990s, according to his financial disclosure forms and court records in New Jersey. In connection with that case, he was cited for contempt by a New Jersey judge, according to Newsweek magazine. Despite his finances, Kerik's November 1998 wedding was a grand affair. It was attended by Donna Hanover, then Mayor Giuliani's wife, Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota, and state Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder. The reception was held at The Chanticler, in Millburn, N.J., one of the Garden State's premier catering facilities. Kerik and his new wife, Hala, entertained 230 guests in the facility's Empress Room. "This thing was top shelf," said one person who attended. "Martini bar, full spread, the works." Ray wrote a check for $1,000 in July 1998 to cover the deposit. Cabell wrote a check for $6,688 to the Chanticler on the day of the wedding. Six weeks after the wedding, Cabell wrote another $2,000 check to the Chanticler. "Bernie was a close friend of myself and Larry's that needed help," Cabell told The News. "I helped him in the planning, details and cost of the wedding." Kerik still couldn't pay the remaining balance, and the Chanticler threatened to sue, Ray and Cabell said. Ray's attorney's handled correspondence with the Chanticler, until Ray and Cabell covered the remaining balance. "Bernie told everybody those guys paid for it," said one official who attended. The reception was not the first time that Ray covered Kerik's tab. After Kerik was named correction commissioner in January 1998, he pleaded with underlings to buy him a Tiffany badge like the one given to the police commissioner, department sources told The News. "He just had to have one because the police commissioner always gets one," said a source who then worked at Correction Department headquarters. In April 1998, Ray wrote a check out to Jorge Ocasio, then Kerik's chief of staff, for $1,895 with "Tiffany badge" written in the memo field. Ray's wife, Teresa, issued the certified check to Bellini on Feb. 22, 2000, shortly before the March 3 birth of Kerik's daughter, Celine. Ray, who acknowledged the gifts to The News after the paper showed him other evidence of the pattern, said he was flush at the time and Kerik always complained about surviving on his civil servant salary. "He was always crying about money," Ray said. "Like before Celine was born, he was always saying he couldn't believe how much everything cost and they were out of money." Ray also showed The News a check for $2,500 that his wife made out to "cash" on Aug. 29, 1999. The check was endorsed and cashed by Kerik. In total, Ray and Cabell showed The News checks to the value of $18,400. At the time, Ray's own finances were deteriorating. A week after Kerik's daughter was born, Ray and 18 other men were indicted in a $40 million, mob-run, pump-and-dump stock swindle. Kerik repeatedly spoke to Ray's criminal defense attorney before the indictment, but he dropped his longtime benefactor when the case became public. "We never saw Ray around Corrections again," said the headquarters source. On Dec. 2, The News asked Kerik to discuss issues raised by the paper's six-month investigation. Kerik never responded.   He Tells Media It's Nannygate By Paul H.b. Shin and Tracy Connor New York Daily News December 12, 2004 Standing in front of his stately New Jersey home yesterday, Bernard Kerik insisted it was the nanny flap alone that doomed his chance to become Homeland Security secretary. Kerik blamed himself for his nanny problem and apologized to President Bush and the American people. "It's my fault," New York's former police commissioner told reporters at a low-key press conference outside the three-story waterside home in Franklin Lakes. "It was a stupid mistake." It was Kerik's first public appearance since he told the White House on Friday night that he was was taking himself out of the nomination process. With a black-clad bodyguard standing in the background and an American flag waving from a pole on his lawn, Kerik was somber as he explained how he discovered problems with his nanny's immigration and tax status. He said he first realized there could be trouble while he was filling out paperwork for the cabinet job Wednesday night, and 48 hours later, he alerted Bush. "I think if I tried to move forward with the confirmation process, it would have been messy, it could have been ugly," he said. "Most important to me, it would have been an embarrassment to the President and his administration, and I just couldn't do that." Kerik, who wore a mustard-colored blazer with an American flag pin on the lapel, was protective of the unnamed nanny who cared for his two daughters. "She was a lovely woman, someone that my children loved, my family loved. She loved them," he said. He wouldn't comment on the details of her immigration and tax status out of "respect for her privacy." Taking questions from reporters, Kerik denied that recent reports about questionable financial dealings in his past played a role in his decision. Kerik scoffed at a story on Newsweek's Web site that said a New Jersey judge had issued an arrest warrant for him in 1998 as part of a lawsuit over unpaid bills on a property he owned. "When you're in a position like this, there is constant scrutiny," he said. Kerik's family was nowhere to be seen during the press conference, but he said he's looking forward to spending time with his kids. "I have two little girls who are extremely happy today that Daddy didn't go to work," he said. A short time later, Kerik was busy unloading Christmas decorations for his home from his pickup truck. With Maggie Haberman   Rudy Red-faced - over Fallen Star By Kenneth R. Bazinet In Washington And Celeste Katz And Maggie Haberman In New York New York Daily News December 12, 2004   Kerik issue put a cloud over Rudy Giuliani yesterday in midtown. A "heartbroken" and "embarrassed" Rudy Giuliani personally took some blame yesterday over the withdrawal of Bernard Kerik as the choice for Homeland Security boss. "I apologized" to White House chief of staff Andrew Card, Giuliani told a crush of reporters at a Times Square press conference yesterday. "I told him that this is our responsibility. ... It's an embarrassment to me and to Bernie and to those of us that supported him because we should have found this out earlier." But he shot down the perennial question of whether he'd step up if asked to fill in as Kerik's replacement, even as some Washington officials whispered that "America's mayor" would have been a better choice. Kerik's pullout just a week after winning Bush's nomination to the crucial post is the first major embarrassment for Giuliani since leaving office a hero after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But most political watchers predicted any harm to Giuliani would be short-lived and wouldn't affect a potential 2008 presidential run. Today, Giuliani heads to Washington as a White House dinner party guest with President Bush. White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo jabbed at Kerik yesterday while defending administration vetting practices, saying, "As Mr. Kerik admitted himself, he should have brought this to our attention sooner." Giuliani conceded Kerik was asked early on whether he had a nanny issue - trouble that has plagued other nominees - but told federal screeners "he didn't believe he had a problem there." Giuliani - known for his loyalty to his inner circle - stuck by his former top cop and business partner. "He made a mistake," Giuliani said. "I am heartbroken, for Bernie, for the President. ... He was about as qualified as you can be for this job. This doesn't take away from Bernie's heroism, this doesn't take away from his decency." It was a stunning turn of events from just nine days earlier. There were reports Giuliani personally lobbied for Kerik, and the appointment had been a significant demonstration of Giuliani's clout and proof of Bush's campaign debt to both. With news reports questioning some of Kerik's history, there'd been speculation among some Homeland Security staffers that Kerik would not clear the nomination process. But one source had said they started to think otherwise "when we saw Hillary Clinton gave him the okay." But with Kerik's disclosure, Giuliani said: "It would have been a very bitter, difficult battle." Sens. Chuck Schumer and Clinton (D-N.Y.) said yesterday they were disappointed by the developments. Kerik's withdrawal is the deepest pothole the White House has hit retooling the cabinet. But aides said Bush could name a new nominee as soon as tomorrow. That list includes longtime Bush loyalist and former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Joe Allbaugh, Homeland deputy Asa Hutchinson, Environmental Protection Agency head Mike Leavitt and Bush homeland security adviser Fran Townsend. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who chairs the committee overseeing homeland security, said Bush should consider reaching across the aisle and tap Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn). Political observers had mixed reactions about the impact of the Kerik debacle on Giuliani. "Rudy was either reckless or misinformed, and neither of those are presidential qualifications," GOP strategist Nelson Warfield said. Others said long-term fallout seems unlikely. "Look, he got somebody in the cabinet and the guy turned out to be a complete bust," widely followed University of Virginia Prof. Larry Sabato said. "But I doubt that will have any long-term implications for Giuliani. He's still the hero for 9/11. Kerik can't change that."   Kerik's Troubling Ties Links to Company in Mobster Probe By Russ Buettner New York Daily News December 12, 2004 From left, Lawrence Ray, Bernard Kerik, Frank DiTomasso and wife, Lisa, at Ray's 40th birthday party in 1999. When he headed the city's jails, Bernard Kerik became deeply entangled with a New Jersey construction company long under fire for its alleged mob ties, a Daily News investigation found. Kerik's troubling connection to the company, Interstate Industrial, began in the fall of 1998, when the company held major city contracts, including one to cover the massive Fresh Kills landfill. Kerik recommended his close friend, Lawrence Ray, for a job helping Interstate cope with mob-leery regulators here and in Atlantic City. Based solely on Kerik calling Ray "a top-shelf guy," the New Jersey company hired Ray at $100,000 a year, according to a sworn deposition that Interstate owner, Frank DiTomasso, gave to city investigators in June 2000. Shortly after hiring Ray, Interstate hired Kerik's brother, Don, to run a dirt and stone transfer station on Staten Island, DiTomasso told investigators. The city Conflicts of Interest Board forbids city officials from using their offices to help relatives or those with whom they have financial relationships. At the time, Ray and another Kerik pal had just finished bankrolling Kerik's wedding reception. The News requested an interview with Kerik on Dec. 2 to discuss Ray, Interstate and other issues. He never responded. Charges that Interstate, based in Clifton, N.J., is controlled by organized crime resurfaced last month when a mob turncoat, Anthony Rotondo, testified in Manhattan Federal Courtthat Interstate paid protection money to the Gambino crime family. "They were able to use nonunion labor," Rotondo said. "They saved a lot of money." The company first raised regulators' eyebrows when it bought a dirt transfer station from Edward Garafola, a notorious mobster and brother-in-law to mob turncoat Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano, according to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, which investigated the deal. At his deposition, DiTomasso recalled that in November 1998, he was "venting" to Ray, whom he had known socially for a decade, about his problems convincing investigators that he wasn't tied to the mob. "He said, 'Look, I have a lot of experience with law enforcement ... I can probably help you,'" DiTomasso said. "At this point in time it was like, you know, I wanted to kiss him." DiTomasso said Ray told him that Kerik would vouch for him. He said Kerik came through. "He just validated Larry was a top-shelf guy," DiTomasso told investigators. Kerik forged his own relationship with DiTomasso, inviting him to his private Christmas party at Correction Department headquarters. "When I would be in the city I would call him, see if he was in, stop by," DiTomasso told city investigators. "I liked Bernie. I thought he was a pretty interesting guy. Still do." Interstate's troubles eventually grew, in part because it had hired Kerik's friend. In 1996, Ray began talking to the FBI about a $40 million, mob-run pump-and-dump stock fraud scheme that a childhood friend dragged him into, according to papers he filed in Brooklyn Federal Court. He cooperated for three years before prosecutors told him, in 1999, that he was a target, the records show. Ray and 18 others were indicted on March 2, 2000, in Brooklyn federal court. Ray's alleged role - described in two sentences of an 80-page indictment - was conspiring to obtain an insurance bond, which never came through, for a mob front company. Ray had worked in the bond field for years. DiTomasso later told city investigators that he hadn't been warned of Ray's legal problems: "That's why when the indictment came down it was a blow." It was no surprise to Kerik. Kerik had five conversations with Ray's criminal defense attorney in 1999 and 2000 that were billed as a cost of Ray's defense, according to itemized bills filed by the attorney in the Somerset County, N.J., courthouse. Ray ran out of money and burned through several attorneys before pleading guilty to a felony conspiracy charge. He was sentenced to nine months of house arrest and five years of probation. The indictment led the city to suspend $85 million in Interstate contracts. But none of the investigations ever touched Kerik. Three months after DiTomasso told city investigators about his interactions with Kerik and Ray and the hiring of Kerik's brother, Kerik was named the city's 40th police commissioner.

Kerik Pulls Out as Bush Nominee for Homeland Security Job

By Eric Lipton and William K. Rashbaum
The New York Times
December 10, 2004

WASHINGTON - Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, abruptly withdrew his name from consideration to be President Bush's secretary of homeland security late Friday night because of questions related to the immigration status of a former household employee.

Mr. Kerik's swift fall - he was nominated only a week ago by President Bush to replace Tom Ridge as homeland security secretary - came in a letter in which he called the offer "the honor of a lifetime," but said that "moving forward would not be in the best interest of your administration, the Department of Homeland Security or the American people."

In reviewing his personal finances this week as he prepared for confirmation hearings, Mr. Kerik said in a statement issued late Friday, he had determined that a housekeeper and nanny he once employed was not clearly a legal immigrant and that he had not properly paid taxes on her behalf.

"I uncovered information that now leads me to question the immigration status of a person who had been in my employ as a housekeeper and nanny," Mr. Kerik said. "It has also been brought to my attention that for a period of time during such employment required tax payments and related filings had not been made."Within two days after the issue first surfaced, it became apparent to all involved that Mr. Kerik had no choice but to withdraw his name, said former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had urged Mr. Bush to nominate Mr. Kerik. The hiring of an illegal immigrant or failure to pay taxes had forced the withdrawal of other cabinet nominations - from Bobby Ray Inman, to Kimba M. Wood to Zoe Baird. For Mr. Kerik, the case was particularly troubling, because as secretary of Homeland Security Mr. Kerik would be in charge of enforcing the nation's immigration laws.

"When an issue like this emerges, it makes it impossible to go forward," Mr. Giuliani said Friday night.

A former New York City official who knows the circumstances of the withdrawal said the housekeeper had left for her home country two weeks ago. Her name and nationality were not disclosed.

From the moment Mr. Kerik's nomination was announced by President Bush, news organizations have been digging into Mr. Kerik's background, from his time as a security chief at a hospital in Saudi Arabia in the early 1980's to his work during the last three years in the private sector. The stream of stories-which raised questions about how he used his position of authority or whether his work in the private sector might present a conflict of interest when he returned to the government-had begun to produce questions about the status of his nomination.

Democrats on Capitol Hill had also begun to investigate some of those reports, and several said privately that they were beginning to have doubts about the nomination.

In just the last three years, Mr. Kerik, 49, had made millions of dollars, mainly through his partnership in a security consulting firm headed by Mr. Giuliani and by serving on the board of a stun-gun manufacturer that has been seeking to do business with the Homeland Security Department.

Most recently, Mr. Kerik sold $5.8 million of stock in a company that makes stun guns used by many police departments around the world.

But as recently as Friday afternoon, White House officials were standing behind Mr. Kerik, saying that his nomination was on track.

"We've looked into all these issues," the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said Friday afternoon. "And obviously he'll be talking about some of these matters during his confirmation hearing. But the president appointed Commissioner Kerik because he knows he is someone who is firmly committed to helping us win the war on terrorism and make sure that we are doing everything we can to protect the homeland."

And Senate staff aides had predicted that he would be able to overcome any conflict-of-interest obstacles to his confirmation and be confirmed to the job that buys $7 billion annually in homeland security goods and security services.

Joseph Tacopina, Mr. Kerik's lawyer, said the decision to step down was not made because of any outside information gathered by news organizations or federal background checks, but rather by Mr. Kerik himself as he filled out application papers, after he discovered information that he thought would cause a problem in his confirmation.

"He has uncovered through the vetting process some information that was personal in nature but that he thought would make it appropriate to withdraw his name from consideration," Mr. Tacopina said. "He wanted to put the country first. He didn't want to distract the president and distract the important mission that Homeland Security has."

Mr. McClellan said the White House would "move as quickly as we can to name someone else to fill this nomination."

Kerik Bows out Nanny Flap Sinks Homeland Security Post By Leo Standora And David Saltonstall in New York And Kenneth R. Bazinet New York Daily News December 11, 2004

Bernie Kerik Former New York top cop Bernard Kerik abruptly pulled his nomination as President Bush's new homeland security boss last night, saying he feared an embarrassing nanny scandal. "I uncovered information that now leads me to question the immigration status of a person who had been in my employ as a housekeeper and nanny," Kerik said in a statement. "It has also been brought to my attention that for a period of time during such employment required tax payments and related filings had not been made." The bombshell decision caught the White House off-guard and sent Bush scrambling for a new candidate to run the sprawling bureaucracy of 22 federal agencies. "I can't believe they let this [the nomination] through and didn't know about it," a White House official complained of the political vetting process before nominations are made. "They should have known about this." Kerik told the President of his choice in an 8:30 p.m. phone call. A source close to Kerik said he agonized over his decision, but wasn't forced into it. "They [the White House] did not ask him to do this, they did not ask him to pull it," the source said. "He feels awful about this." Kerik said he feared that the disclosure would generate intense scrutiny that would "only serve as a significant and unnecessary distraction to the vital efforts of the Department of Homeland Security." In a formal letter to Bush, Kerik wrote, "I am convinced that, for personal reasons, moving forward would not be in the best interests of your administration, the Department of Homeland Security or the American people." The White House said Bush accepted Kerik's decision. Kerik's old boss, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, had lobbied Bush heavily to give the ex-commish the job, but backed Kerik's decision to pull out. "I feel very bad about this for everyone including the country because Bernie would have been an exceptional homeland security chief," he said. Giulaini dismissed suggestions that Kerik dropped out because of media reports about business links to security companies that are or may be clients of the Department of Homeland Security. "All that stuff was very manageable," said Giuliani. Friends said the nanny problem developed while Kerik, who has two young daughters, was in Iraq helping to form an Iraqi police force. Some observers said it was unlikely the Senate would reject Kerik under those circumstances, but Giuliani said this was one issue "that was not manageable," considering that Kerik would oversee immigration enforcement. The fall of Kerik, 49, was sudden, but reporters had been delving into his background since the nomination a week ago. After an initial glowing reception that included strong support from New York's Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, negative media reports were starting to surface. Sources told the Daily News that FBI Director Robert Mueller was starting a file on the public controversies to make sure nothing caught him off-guard, even as FBI agents were beginning formal background checks. The most troubling new reports about Kerik were accounts that he earned some $6 million by exercising stock options from Taser International, which is seeking business with the Department of Homeland Security. He drew sharp criticism for bugging out of his Iraq police job just 14 weeks into his six-month assignment. Although his mission was to help build a strong and efficient Iraqi police force, that force remains mostly a joke. Other issues have dogged Kerik. Last summer, questions arose about his decision as police commissioner to order four high-tech $50,000 security doors for headquarters. The Internal Affairs Bureau found no wrongdoing, but noted that a proper engineering study wasn't done. As the city's Corrections Department boss, Kerik allegedly "blocked the promotion of a qualified jail supervisor" because the man had reprimanded a female officer Kerik had dated. Both allegations, however, remain unproven. Some of his appointees have also wound up in hot water. Last June, a Kerik crony was sentenced to a year in prison for embezzling $142,733 from a charity. Kerik was one of four people ever on the charity's board, but denied knowledge of its finances. The former boss of Rikers Island, whom Kerik had promoted six times, is facing allegations he pressured underlings to work on Republican political campaigns. A rap that didn't stick happened three years ago when Kerik allegedly sent five top homicide cops to the homes of some Fox News staffers - one as far away as New Jersey - when talk-show host Judith Regan suspected them of stealing her cell phone. Regan is the publisher of Kerik's memoir "The Lost Son." The outraged Fox folk threatened a suit against the city and Kerik, but later gave up the idea. Kerik swore he never gave his gumshoes that particular go-ahead. Kerik also used NYPD investigators to research the murder of his mother, a former prostitute killed when he was 4, for his book. He had to pay the city $2,500 under a settlement with the Conflict of Interest Board. In the 1980s, while working as chief of investigations for a Saudi Arabian hospital complex, Kerik allegedly abused his authority to delve into the private lives of women with whom his boss was romantically involved. Kerik is not the first official to fall victim to the "nanny problem." Similar issues killed the nominations of three candidates for posts in the Clinton administration. One administration official helping prepare Kerik for Senate confirmation said Kerik's unexpected decision shocked senior leaders at the Homeland Security Department. The official said Kerik still had not filled out all his ethics filings - which would detail his sources of income and financial liabilities - and said the FBI background investigation of Kerik was still incomplete. Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) said the White House earlier in the day had E-mailed him some talking points in support of Kerik for King's appearance on CNN yesterday. "Clearly, nobody in the White House knew this was going to happen," said King. "Personally I'm very surprised and disappointed for New York, the nation and for Bernie. I was very confident he would be confirmed."

Security Post Would Put Kerik
 Atop Field That Enriched Him

By Eric Lipton
The New York Times
December 9, 2004

WASHINGTON - Just five years ago, Bernard B. Kerik was facing lawsuits from a condominium association and bank over delinquent payments owed on a modest New Jersey condo he owned. Today, he is a multimillionaire as a result of a lucrative partnership with former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and an even more profitable relationship with a stun-gun manufacturer.

If he is confirmed to the post of homeland security secretary, to which President Bush nominated him last week, he will oversee an enormous department that does business with some of the companies that helped make him wealthy.

The list of income sources that transformed Mr. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, into a wealthy man is a diverse one, including a best-selling autobiography, speeches around the United States and service on corporate boards. Mr. Kerik, who now lives in a large house in the decidedly more upscale New Jersey town of Franklin Lakes and drives a BMW sedan, even sold the right to make a feature film about his rags-to-riches life to Miramax, the film production company.

But it is the relationship Mr. Kerik has had since the spring of 2002 with Taser International, a Scottsdale, Ariz., manufacturer of stun guns, that has by far been the biggest source of his newfound wealth. That relationship has earned him more than $6.2 million in pretax profits through stock options he was granted and then sold, mostly in the last month. A White House spokesman said Mr. Kerik would resign from Taser's board and sell his remaining stock if confirmed.

Mr. Kerik benefited largely because the company's stock has surged extraordinarily. Stock options that were worth little when they were granted became extremely valuable, in part because of the sales pitch that Mr. Kerik made on the company's behalf to other police departments.

The sales driving Taser's growing profits are mostly to local and state governments. But while Mr. Kerik has served on the company's board, the company has made an aggressive push to enter markets either regulated or controlled by the federal government, most notably the Department of Homeland Security.

At one point, Mr. Kerik referred Taser executives, seeking more federal business, to a Customs and Border Protection official of the Homeland Security Department, according to the company president.

"Anyone in a federal law enforcement position is a potential customer," said Thomas Smith, president and co-founder of Taser International, who said he hired Mr. Kerik because of his prominence as the city's police commissioner. "And we are going to continue to go after that business."

Mr. Kerik declined, through a spokeswoman, to discuss his work for Taser. Although he is required for at least one year to recuse himself from decisions involving his former clients or partners, that will not prohibit the Homeland Security Department from doing business with those companies. A White House spokesman said Mr. Kerik would adhere to "the highest ethical standards" and ensure there are no conflicts of interest.

"In order to avoid even an appearance of a conflict, he will comply with all ethics laws and rules to avoid acts that might affect former clients or organizations where he served as a director," said the spokesman, Brian Besanceney.

Mr. Kerik had a close view of electroshock devices in the 1990's when he was commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, which was looking for new tools to help it combat surging jail violence. After testing Taser guns as well as a stun shield sold by another company, the department chose the shield as better suited for prison use. But Mr. Kerik said the electroshock devices had impressed him as a way to subdue inmates without physically confronting them.

When he later became police commissioner, the Police Department initiated a pilot program testing new Taser models. The department eventually purchased about 260 of the stun guns.

In 2002, Taser International sought to significantly expand its sales to law enforcement agencies and it needed a high-profile former public official who could serve as a spokesman for its product, Mr. Smith said. Mr. Kerik, he added, was the perfect candidate, having served as both correction and police commissioner. Mr. Kerik's role working alongside Mayor Giuliani on Sept. 11, 2001, had also earned him a national reputation, particularly in law enforcement.

"We wanted someone who was recognizable to other chiefs around the country," Mr. Smith said in a telephone interview. "And that is what we got with Bernie."

After he joined Taser's board in May 2002, Mr. Kerik quickly became one of Taser's chief spokesmen before police officials.

"This trend is a dramatic change in law enforcement," Mr. Kerik wrote in an invitation sent to police chiefs nationally, referring to the use of stun guns. "And one expected to grow."

Mr. Kerik also defended Taser against criticism that its weapons had contributed to the deaths of suspects who have been fired upon by police. Amnesty International, the human rights organization, said there had been 74 Taser-related deaths in North America since 2001 and called for a suspension on the device's use until its safety was further investigated. An Air Force laboratory that conducted research on the guns said last month that it could not determine if they were safe, in contrast to statements from Taser that the lab had found its weapons generally safe and effective.

"Any chief of a major agency knows that there will be sudden, unexpected deaths in police custody no matter what tactics the police use," Mr. Kerik was quoted as saying in a press release issued by Taser in July. "Police agencies implement equipment like pepper spray and Taser devices in efforts to save as many of these people as possible."

The Taser publicity campaign has been an enormous success. More than 6,000 law enforcement agencies use Tasers, compared with a handful five years ago, and Taser International's sales have climbed to about $68 million this year from $6.9 million in 2001.

In Washington, Taser executives have sought ways to break into another potentially enormous market: domestic security and the military.

The company hired a lobbyist and met repeatedly with government officials to begin building a base for future federal business, which has represented only about 3 percent of the company's sales.

Language promoting Taser's interest was written into legislation that became law, including one bill advising that "members of a flight deck crew of a cargo aircraft should be armed with a firearm or Taser."

In November, the Transportation Security Administration approved the use of Taser stun guns aboard aircraft for the first time, giving Korean Air permission to use them on flights to the United States.

Executives at Taser also approached the Customs and Border Protection division of the Homeland Security Department to try to encourage it to buy Tasers for its officers. Mr. Kerik did try to help with that pitch, referring the company to a Customs official from New York that he knew, Mr. Smith said. The agency, which has thousands of armed officers, is now evaluating the Taser, a spokesman said.

When Mr. Kerik was a New York City police officer in the 1980's, he was so tight on funds that he filed for personal bankruptcy. But after he stepped down as police commissioner in 2002, he joined Mr. Giuliani's rapidly growing consulting firm, which primarily advises and promotes the products of security companies, several of which do business or are seeking to do business with the Homeland Security Department.

Officials at the firm, Giuliani Partners, would not say how much he made there.

But one contract alone, promoting the domestic security uses of the cellular phone company Nextel, earned Giuliani Partners at least $15 million, a piece of which would have been shared with Mr. Kerik.

Mr. Smith, the president of Taser, said he had become quite friendly with Mr. Kerik over the years, joining him at cigar bars and steakhouses in New York, as well as inviting Mr. Kerik to his home in Arizona.

"I certainly don't expect any preferential treatment from Bernie, and I would not expect he would give it either," Mr. Smith said.

Mr. Kerik will have to be approved by the Senate before he takes control of Homeland Security. Several members of the Senate Committee on Government Affairs, which must pass on his nomination, declined to comment when asked about Mr. Kerik's work in the private sector. But staff members indicated that questions about this work were not likely to disrupt his nomination.

For now, Mr. Kerik remains on the Taser board and remains an employee at Giuliani Partners, but his work at both companies has been suspended and he will resign if confirmed. Any remaining stock he owns at Taser or ownership at Giuliani Partners will also be cashed out, company officials said.

[Index to Articles]