Posted on 12/15/2004 9:17:25 AM PST by crushelits
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.
I wonder if the apartment used for filming was the same apartment Kerik used for his liaisons?
Is she still on FOX?
What does the fact that Mr. Bergamo is licensed to legally carry handguns have to do with this alleged affair. I see a lot of innuendo, but the bulk of the article has nothing to do with the "affair."
Doubt it.
To obtain apistol permit in NYC is virtually imposssible.. it can often take years to be processed.. unless a favor is done by someone who can move the porcess along, like the police commissioner. It's an innuendo...to see if it sticks..same as the implication that apts after 9/11 inthe area of Ground ZXero rented at "below market rate" SAlso crap..there were no rates..who the hell would move there? Part of the $20 billion payment to NY went to subsidize rentals in the area..
The NYT really went trash picking to come up with this article.
By golly. I said last night that the NY Times would probably publish this story, and that they had leaked it ahead of time to Drudge in order to increase publicity.
Sometimes Drudge allows himself to be manipulated and suckered by these deliberate leaks.
The most egregious case was when the clintons leaked the Danny Williams story to him and the NY Post through a supermarket tabloid and then trapped them, because of course Danny's DNA didn't match the DNA in the appendix of the Starr report, which for security reasons had been faked.
Thus the MSM used Drudge to kill the Danny Williams story.
A classic example of sleazy innuendo posing as straight reporting. The reporter worked overtime to throw in everything including the kitchen sink to spread the smear as wide as possible.
Does somebody want to explain to me just what is the purpose of continuing to destroy this man? He withdrew his nomination long ago, and this is just disgusting.
"The NYT really went trash picking to come up with this article."
The NYT does some of their most creative work at the dump these days.
Because it's chock full of sly innuendo.
OK, Kerick gets the apartment for his guys. Several months later and after the cleanup is underway, he asks to rent the apartment and is provided one (not necessarily the same one) in the building.
If I were that building owner, two blocks from WTC and only a few months after 9/11, I would have given Kerick whatever he wanted, gratis.
The article then segues into completely unrelated terrain about the real estate moguls and their honorary badges and CC permits. What in the heck does that have to do with Kerick's apartment, or his extramarital affairs. Answer: nothing, zilch, nada. In fact it has nothing to do with anything, couldn't stand as a story in its own right ("Law enforcement philanthropists are treated well by NYPD"?). There's no there there.
Sorry, I get the impression the NYT had an editorial meeting, and they dredged up 3 or 4 unrelated back-burner rumors and threw them into the pot to come up with this unappetizing mess.
It's the kind of story you'd see parodied in Bonfire Of The Vanities.
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