FOR THE RECORD

 The infamous million-dollar security doors that followed Bernie Kerik from the Correction Department to the NYPD without ever being used resurfaced again Oct. 17 with the arrest of Alan J. Risi, the man who originally sold them. This newspaper broke the original stories in June and July of 2004 of how the 19 doors were ordered while Mr. Kerik moved between the two agencies but were never actually used.

In the case of the Correction Department doors, an agency spokesman claimed at the time that they wound up rotting in a Rikers Island warehouse because the department hadn't anticipated closing jails where they would otherwise have been deployed. This explanation never made much sense because the city jail population had been dropping steadily for years prior to the purchase.

The NYPD doors turned out never to have been tested prior to their purchase. This created a slight problem when, after Police Commissioner Ray Kelly succeeded Mr. Kerik in 2002, his staff discovered that the doors were too heavy to be used in their intended spot in the lobby of Police Headquarters.

Mr. Kerik consistently denied that he was involved in the purchase of the doors at both agencies. In one of those coincidences that always seem to follow him around, he eventually wound up on the board of a company that signed an agreement with the Queens manufacturer of the doors, Georal International, to be its international distributor. Part of his arrangement with that company, the now-defunct DataWorld Solutions, involved potentially lucrative stock options at highly discounted rates.

One Florida door manufacturer told us at the time that the city had been royally overcharged for the doors, saying he offered a similar model for nearly $20,000 less than the $52,000-per-door purchase price under the Georal transaction. Given the fact that there was no need for the doors at Correction and they were unsuited for the NYPD, there was a distinct sense that something rotten had transpired.

Mr. Risi, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to ripping off the city on an unrelated door-maintenance contract, apparently retained a sentimental feeling for the doors from which he profited so handsomely. Seven months ago, when the city offered the 19 surplus doors at auction, he allegedly enlisted Joanne Ruscillo to be his beard in bidding on them. She snagged the doors for a grand total of $35,000, about $950,000 below the total city outlay back in 2000 and 2001.

The Department of Citywide Administrative Services grew suspicious, however, when it discovered that Ms. Ruscillo's company, Integrated Security Corp., shared an address with Georal.

A further probe by the Department of Investigation, Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said, revealed that Ms. Ruscillo made a down payment of $3,500 against the full purchase price using money orders that she had bought with a check signed by Mr. Risi.

Mr. Risi and Ms. Ruscillo have both been charged with offering a false instrument for filing, which carries a prison term of up to four years in prison.

***

He hasn't risen to the same heights of fame as New York City Firefighter Tom Westman - last year's million-dollar winner of "Survivor: Palau'' - but subway Conductor Eric "Badlands" Booker entered the annals of reality TV in a recent episode of ABC's "Wife Swap" that had him going toe-to-toe with a former boxer.

Badlands, a professional eater weighing in at well over 400 pounds, has made a second career as "The Ingestion Engine." For the show, producers swapped his genial wife Regina with tough-as-nails Jennifer, an undefeated three-time world champion boxer who now trains athletes.

The two competitors butted heads over just about everything - including Eric's sizable collection of trophies, earned at hot dog- and pancake-eating contests. Badlands manfully took up exercise and scaled-down meals at his new partner's request, but drew the line at tossing the awards. "She's trying to erase who I am!" he told the cameras. There was no cash prize for Badlands at the close of the show, but welcoming his wife home probably felt like a million bucks.