From Cabinet Nominee To Convicted Felon
Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani's Protege, Pleads To Corruption Charges
Nov 6, 2009
His fall was even more spectacular.
Kerik pleaded guilty in federal court Nov. 5 to eight charges, including lying to White House officials, tax fraud, and accepting $250,000 from a mob-linked contractor to pay for home renovations. Prosecutors recommended a prison term of 27 to 33 months. Judge Stephen Robinson, however, indicated that he might levy a harsher sentence. The crimes in the original indictment could have brought a sentence of 20 years.
Hardscrabble Beginnings
Bernie Kerik was born Sept. 4, 1955, in Newark, N.J. He spent most of his childhood in Paterson, a blue-collar city near Newark. His father worked in a tool and die shop. His mother, from whom he was separated as a toddler, became a small-time hooker and was murdered in Ohio when he was nine. (Kerik was later fined for sending two New York detectives to Ohio to trace his mother's background, information he used in his autobiography, The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice, according to the Los Angeles Times. Two Newsday columnists, among others, also criticized him for including crime scene photos from the 9/11 attacks and for hurriedly adding a chapter on the tragedy in an apparent attempt to cash in on the tragedy.)
KIerik dropped out of Paterson’s Eastside High School (depicted in the film Lean on Me) and joined the Army. He later worked as a civilian guard in Saudi Arabia. He became a correction officer in Passaic County, N.J., outside New York City, and quickly rose to become warden of the county jail. In 1986, seven months after he became warden, Kerik left to join the New York Police Department at a substantially lower salary.
Kerik worked in the troubled Bedford-Stuyvesant area and then in Midtown Manhattan, patrolling the then-notorious 42nd Street area. Now cleaned up and sporting theaters, a Disney store and Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, the street in the late 1980s was a dangerous warren of sex shops, sex theaters, sex workers, petty criminals, and drug dealers. In The Lost Son , Kerik describes catching men carrying illegal guns by asking stores that sold holsters to put the holsters in bags that were red rather than the usual white. (This brainstorm has been attributed to other cops, including former deputy commissioner Jack Maple.)
Kerik and Giuliani
Kerik joined the Narcotics Division, buying drugs as an undercover officer. He was promoted to detective in 1989-1990, continuing to work narcotics and eventually joining an elite joint task force that included federal agents Even so, Kerik never advanced beyond the entry-level detective rank of detective third grade.
Kerik met Rudolph Giuliani in 1990 at a fund-raising dinner for a foundation named for a narcotics detective killed while working undercover. A year earlier, the former federal prosecutor had lost a mayoral race to David Dinkins. Giuliani decided to try again and asked Kerik to join his campaign. Kerik worked as one of Giuliani’s drivers and after Giuliani was elected joined the city Corrections Department, combating violence in the city’s jails and eventually becoming commissioner.
Fiercely loyal to the mayor, Kerik was named police commissioner in 2000, replacing a Giuliani appointee from out of town. At the time, several Giuliani advisers complained about Kerik’s low rank—barely a step above patrolman--and his lack of education (he had obtained a GED, but the Police Department then required a college degree for any rank above sergeant). It is difficult to measure Kerik’s performance as commissioner because Giuliani had an iron grip on the department, claiming credit for the city’s sharp drop in crime.
Kerik basked in reflected glory from Giuliani over the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Kerik accompanied Guliani and other city officials to the World Trade Center expecting to work out of the citywide crisis center that Giuliani had built in 7 World Trade Center. But when they arrived, they found that building destroyed, and when the towers collapsed they were forced to race around the area, avoiding the falling debris. Kerik remained police commissioner until Giuliani’s term expired at the end of 2001.
In May 2003 Kerik was appointed Iraq’s interim minister of the interior, responsible for police and intelligence services. Kerik stayed four months, abruptly returning to the U.S. apparently without telling anyone he was leaving. He then went to work for Giuliani’s consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, which earned millions advising companies and countries about anti-terrorist security.
Kerik spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention, and in December 2004, at Giuliani’s urging, President George W. Bush nominated Kerik as Homeland Security secretary. “Bernard Kerik has devoted his life to protecting his fellow citizens,” Bush said at the time.
Long Slide Down
That’s when Kerik’s life started unraveling. After a week of critical press coverage, Kerik withdrew his name, saying that his nanny was in the U.S illegally and that he had not paid taxes on her wages.
Several nastier disclosures followed. Perhaps the most sensational involved media reports of his affair with the publisher of The Lost Son, Judith Regan. The pair met repeatedly at an apartment overlooking Ground Zero that had been donated to provide a rest spot for rescue workers.
Others were more serious. He pleaded guilty in 2006 to ethics violations and was fined Prosecutors said he had accepted money from a mob-connected contractor to pay for home renovations, which the contractor hoped would lead to a city license. In pleading guilty Kerik admitted contacting city officials on the contractor’s behalf. Corruption charges were dropped as part of the plea bargain, which ended federal proceedings against him.
Kerik’s relations with his mentor Rudy Giuliani, who is godfather to two of his children, have been severely damaged if not ended. "I have pointed out that I have made a mistake.” Giuliani said of Kerik in 2007. “I made a mistake in not clearing him effectively enough." Kerik was considered a drag on Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign and is expected to cause problems if the former mayor runs for New York governor next year.
SOURCES: New York Times, New York Daily News, Wikpedia, The Lost Son (William Morrow/ReganBooks, 2001, ISBN no. 978-0060009014), Time Magazine
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