Former Police Commissioner Now a Criminal; Kerik Pleads Guilty To Taking $200G As Jails Boss

Former Police Commissioner Now a Criminal;
Kerik Pleads Guilty To Taking $200G As Jails Boss

By RICHARD STEIER

Bernard B. Kerik, whose role as Rudy Giuliani's campaign bodyguard launched a dizzying climb to the highest offices of the Correction Department and the NYPD, wrote a grotesque ending to his career in city government June 30 when he pleaded guilty to improperly accepting nearly $200,000, much of it from two businessmen tied to organized crime.

The Chief-Leader/Michael O'Kane BERNIE GOES BOOM: Disgraced former Correction and Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik talks to reporters after pleading guilty to accepting nearly $200,000 to buy and renovate a Riverdale apartment, much of it from a firm with alleged organized-crime ties. In return for his guilty plea to two misdemeanor counts and his payment of a $221,000 fine, Mr. Kerik escaped jail time. But a reputation that had soared after he served as Police Commissioner during 9/11 and brought him to the verge of becoming U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security 19 months ago was irretrievably muddied by his admission of his crimes before Bronx Supreme Court Justice John P. Collins.

Less than 40 hours after the guilty plea, Mayor Bloomberg had the name of what since December 2001 had been the Bernard B. Kerik Complex changed back to the Manhattan Detention Center.

Firm Linked to Gambinos

During his plea, Mr. Kerik said that when he allowed $165,000 worth of renovation work on his Riverdale apartment to be paid by Interstate Industrial Corp., he believed that the firm was "clean." Investigators contend that the firm's owners have ties to the Gambino Crime Family.

At the time that the renovation work began in 1999, Interstate was seeking a city contract, and Mr. Kerik arranged a meeting between one of its owners, Frank DiTommaso, and Raymond V. Casey, a cousin of then-Mayor Giuliani who at the time headed the city's Trade Waste Commission. Mr. Casey, who currently is President of the Off-Track Betting Corporation, has told the New York Times that while the meeting was held in Mr. Kerik's office at the Correction Department, he did not try to influence the decision on the firm's license.

Mr. DiTommaso and his brother have denied paying for the renovations on the Riverdale apartment. Their firm also hired Mr. Kerik's brother, Donald, for $85,000 a year in the late 1990s, as well as the best man at Mr. Kerik's 1998 wedding, Lawrence Ray. It was Mr. Ray whose disclosures to the Daily News after he and Bernard Kerik had a falling-out provided the early basis for the probe of the former Correction and Police Commissioner.

Developer's Loans

The Chief-Leader/Michael O'Kane 'BEST DEAL WE COULD GET': With city Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn looking on, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson explained his decision to allow Bernard Kerik to plead guilty to misdemeanors by saying that there was insufficient evidence that the $165,000 in renovations of Mr. Kerik's Riverdale apartment that were paid for by an allegedly mob-connected firm was intended as a bribe to ensure that he could win a felony conviction.

Mr. Kerik also pleaded guilty to failing to report loans totaling $28,000 that he received from a real-estate developer, Nathan Berman, which provided the down payment on the apartment where the renovations took place. At the time, Mr. Kerik was earning $137,000 a year as Correction Commissioner and had held high-ranking positions in the agency since 1995, but he had previously filed for bankruptcy and has a reputation for extravagance.

Mr. Kerik was defiant rather than contrite when he spoke with reporters outside the Bronx County Courthouse. "The last year and a half has been a tremendous burden," he said. "But today it's over. Now I can get on with my business." He is currently a security consultant in the Middle East.

When a reporter asked whether he was sorry, Mr. Kerik's only response was to snap to his lawyer, "Let's go."

DA Defends Disposition

Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson and city Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn, responding to criticism of the deal as too lenient that began even before Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty, cited the difficulty of proving the case had it gone to trial, given the statute of limitations and the hazy recollections of some of those interviewed about events that occurred seven or eight years ago. The statute of limitations was what made it impossible for prosecutors to indict the DiTommasos in connection with the case; Mr. Kerik, on the other hand, did not have the five-year limit begin ticking until he left city government at the end of 2001.

Mr. Johnson and Ms. Hearn said they believed the plea agreement satisfied their desire to convict Mr. Kerik of serious offenses and send a message, as the Bronx DA put it, to other would-be municipal law-breakers that "they must toe the line because the investigators and prosecutors of this city will make them pay."

While neither count to which Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty is a felony, Ms. Hearn said he had admitted to "two crimes that reflect his betrayal of the public trust."

'Has to Live With This'

"This is surely not a happy day for him," she said of the disgraced former Police Commissioner. "[The probe] brought to light the now-undeniable truth of Mr. Kerik's conduct, and a criminal record that he will now have to live with for the rest of his life."

Both prosecutors scoffed at the attempt of Mr. Kerik's lead attorney, Joseph Tacopina, to minimize the guilty plea by saying that all he admitted to were "unclassified misdemeanors."

"He was fingerprinted and photographed, just like any other perp arrested by the agencies that he used to lead," Ms. Hearn said.

Told that Mr. Tacopina characterized his client's violations as "a mistake," Mr. Johnson replied, "You could say it was a mistake to shoot somebody dead, also. This is a crime."

In accepting the plea, the prosecutors opted not to charge Mr. Kerik in other matters that came under investigation, including the mass purchase of expensive security doors for the Correction and Police Departments that were never used. Referring to the offenses covered in the guilty plea, Mr. Johnson said, "We felt that there crimes were the most serious crimes we would be able to prove."

It remains to be seen whether the criminal conviction of his most-trusted law-enforcement aide - the man with whom he became particularly closely associated in the public's mind following 9/11 - affects the political ambitions of former Mayor Giuliani. From the time that revelations about improper and illegal behavior on Mr. Kerik's part began to surface just after he declined President Bush's nomination to head the Homeland Security Department because of a "nanny problem," his past misdeeds have raised questions about Mr. Giuliani's judgment.

Rudy: Look At Big Picture

The former Mayor made no comment following the guilty plea other than to issue a statement saying, "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."

One mystery surrounding Mr. Giuliani's decision to appoint Mr. Kerik Police Commissioner in August 2000 over the then-First Deputy Police Commissioner, Joseph Dunne, is whether he was aware of the findings of the Department of Investigation regarding Mr. Kerik's relationship with the DiTommaso brothers.

That relationship surfaced during a DOI examination of the firm in June of that year because of its application for a city waste-hauling license. Mr. Giuliani has denied knowing of those findings, and the Investigation Commissioner at the time, Edward J. Kuriansky, has ducked media inquiries on the subject.

Hearn: They Talked

Ms. Hearn said that there "isn't a clear record of those conversations" between Mr. Kuriansky and Mr. Giuliani, but she indicated her belief that the subject had come up, saying, "DOI did have some conversations with City Hall, because, as you know, [Mr. Kuriansky] did attend the morning meetings" that Mr. Giuliani had with his top aides.

It has previously been reported that Mr. Kerik was exempted from the usual DOI background check when he became Police Commissioner, with the explanation given that it was skipped because he had undergone such a check before becoming Correction Commissioner at the end of 1997. It was after that appointment, however, that numerous questions about Mr. Kerik's financial dealings surfaced, including how he paid for his wedding at the end of 1998, whether uniformed Correction Department personnel were paid overtime to act as security at that affair, and the purchase of the Riverdale apartment and its renovation.

Wouldn't Let It Slide

Ms. Hearn remarked, "As DOI Commissioner, when faced with transfers [by top agency officials], we have done full backgrounds." She attempted to defend Mr. Kuriansky against the implication that he should have rooted out Mr. Kerik's improprieties, saying, "Commissioner Kuriansky did not know then what I know now and DA Johnson knows now about the hidden relationship between Mr. Kerik and Interstate."

The press release in which the two prosecutors thanked aides who worked on the case conspicuously omitted the name of Michael Caruso, the longtime Inspector General for the Correction Department who abruptly quit his job three months ago. Mr. Kerik in his autobiography identified Mr. Caruso as one of his closest colleagues, someone who helped him prepare for the interview with Mr. Giuliani that got him the Police Commissioner's job. Mr. Caruso has been criticized for losing his sense of impartiality as the agency's watchdog.

Assistant Deputy Wardens/Deputy Wardens Association President Sidney Schwartzbaum suspects that Mr. Caruso was forced from his job because he apprised Mr. Kerik about details of the probe, "and he may have compromised part of the investigation."

Ran Jails Like Fiefdom

Mr. Schwartzbaum was among the first to assert that Mr. Kerik, while greatly reducing the violence in the jail system during his 32 months at its helm, had engaged in blatant favoritism on matters ranging from promotions to disciplinary action. Starting while he was at Correction, Mr. Kerik had an affair with a female officer, which later received widespread publicity when it was revealed that he had used an apartment near Ground Zero that was meant as a place to sleep for rescue workers to have sex with both the officer and his publisher.

One of numerous lawsuits the Bloomberg administration settled that dated from Mr. Kerik's tenure at Correction involved trumped-up sexual harassment charges that the department brought against a Captain who tried to discipline a friend of Mr. Kerik's lover. There were also several instances in which promotions were made or denied based on whether department officials were loyal to the Republican Party.

'Gestapo Meets The Mob'

Mr. Schwartzbaum said of Mr. Kerik's conviction, "In a way, it's vindication for everything I've been saying when I said the department was run like a cross between the Gestapo, the Taliban and the mob."

Mr. Kerik's misconduct, he added, should be a lesson to future Mayors inclined to reward their friends and acolytes with top city jobs. "When you appoint people based on loyalty and blind fealty rather than merit," Mr. Schwartzbaum said, "this is what you get."