NY POST——December 12, 2004
WHITE HOUSE NAILED KERIK
By JOE McGURK, JENNIFER FERMINO and STEFAN C. FRIEDMAN
Bush administration officials demanded to know if ex-New York top cop Bernard Kerik had any “nannygate” troubles — and the would-be homeland security chief insisted that he didn’t before he finally came forward and admitted he hired an illegal Mexican house servant, according to a published report.
The officials even warned Kerik that he ran the danger of humiliating his family, himself and President Bush if he didn’t come clean about any nanny problems, the Washington Post reported in today’s edition. But still Kerik responded with “firm denials,” the paper said. It was only after Kerik said he dug deeper and found out
that a woman he employed to help his family while he was training cops in Iraq didn’t have the proper working papers, the Washington Post reported.
Yesterday, in a press conference outside his New Jersey home, Kerik said that Bush aides came to him, but did not give details. “This was asked of me by the president’s staff when this was in the vetting process,” he said. “It wasn’t the vetting process [that is at fault]. This was my fault. Something I should have focused on earlier.” A bleary-eyed and downtrodden Kerik also offered up an apology for getting the Bush administration and his patron — ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani — in the middle of the confirmation mess. “It’s a mistake I am dealing with now . . . I owe an enormous apology to the president for whatever distraction this may have caused,” Kerik said.
A source expressed the Bush administration’s displeasure with Kerik in an interview with CNN — saying they wished he had ‘fessed up about the nanny before the process got this far. “As Mr. Kerik admitted himself, he should have brought this to our attention sooner. The president respects his decision and wishes Commissioner Kerik and his wife well.”
Kerik, 49, the city’s former top cop, was nominated by Bush to take over for Tom Ridge as the head of the Department of Homeland Security — which oversees both terror protection and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
He withdrew his nomination Friday after it was discovered he hired a Mexican nanny who did not have the proper papers to work in the United States — and he did not pay the proper taxes on her. Despite stepping down, and making his apology yesterday, Kerik told reporters he believed he still might have won nomination to the Homeland post. “Who knows if I could have gotten through the process with this,” he said. “I think, personally, it may have got through, but it would have been messy.”
However, Giuliani contradicted his protégé. “The odds were because of this issue he wouldn’t get confirmed,” Giuliani said yesterday. The former mayor also took responsibility for not recognizing the nanny’s immigration problems earlier. “It’s an embarrassment to me and Bernie [and] to those of us who supported him,” Giuliani said. Giuliani personally apologized to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, putting some of the blame on his own shoulders.
“I told Andy this was our responsibility,” Giuliani said. In another potential black eye for Kerik, it was revealed yesterday that a bench warrant was issued for him in 1998 after he repeatedly failed to make payments on a New Jersey condominium he owned.
A tenant in the East Rutherford condo complex who refused to reveal her name last night told The Post that Kerik owed $20,000 in maintenance charges. Although that number couldn’t be confirmed by authorities, foreclosure proceedings had begun on the apartment at 39 Triumph Circle.
But several Kerik aides were quick to say he hadn’t even known about the warrant until Friday night. The condo situation “didn’t have anything to do with this,” Kerik bluntly stated, a claim echoed by Giuliani. But Kerik’s condo woes weren’t the only problems hindering his bid to lead DHS.
* He was under scrutiny for garnering $6 million by selling off stock options in Taser International, a company looking to strike a deal with DHS.
* Questions still surround the reasons why he left a six-month assignment to train Iraqi police officers after just 14 weeks.
* Kerik had to fork over $2,500 to New York City’s Conflict of Interest Board after he used NYPD investigators to research his autobiography.
Additional reporting by Murray Weiss
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/36263.htm
NY TIMES——August 4, 2006
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Officials Say Kerik Faces a Second Investigation
(Giuliani appointee used gov’t $$$ for phone sex)
Former Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik is under federal investigation for possible financial improprieties unrelated to the crimes he pleaded guilty to last month in state court, two law enforcement officials said yesterday.
The federal investigation began about a year ago and has focused on a foundation affiliated with the city’s Department of Correction during Mr. Kerik’s tenure as its commissioner, from 1998 to 2000, according to one of the officials, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Kerik later served as Giuliani’s police commissioner from August 2000 to December 2001.
Last month, Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in State Supreme Court in the Bronx. Under an agreement that allowed him to avoid jail time and a felony conviction, he admitted accepting $165,000 in apartment renovations from a company accused of having ties to organized crime; he agreed to pay $221,000 in fines.
The foundation at the center of the federal inquiry first came under scrutiny in early 2003, after an article in The Daily News raised questions about its finances. In July of that year, a former high-ranking Correction Department official was arrested and later pleaded guilty to mail fraud charges, admitting that he stole more than $137,000 from the fund. But hundreds of thousands of dollars of the foundation’s money, which came from rebates on cigarettes purchased for inmates, was apparently never accounted for.
The federal investigation is being conducted by the F.B.I. and prosecutors from the office of Michael Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan, who have subpoenaed bank records, one of the officials said. The precise suspicions about Mr. Kerik with regard to the foundation funds were unclear.
Mark Mershon, the assistant F.B.I. director who heads the bureau’s New York office, declined to comment, as did Lauren McDonough, a spokeswoman for Mr. Garcia.
Mr. Kerik’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, scoffed. “I’m not going to justify a rumor like that with a comment,” he said. Word of the investigation came just five weeks after Mr. Kerik stood outside a Bronx courthouse, minutes after pleading guilty in the state case, and said, “Today it’s over.”
The investigation is the latest blow for a man whose stunning rise from (Giuliani’s driver and bodyguard, to) detective to the city’s highest-ranking law enforcement official (and Giuliani’s business partner) nearly took him to the White House, when President Bush nominated him to serve as Homeland Security secretary in December 2004.
Kerik withdrew his name a week after the president’s announcement, citing tax and immigration issues involving his nanny, a move that was followed by a torrent of disclosures and accusations of personal and financial improprieties.
The foundation, the New York City Correction Foundation, was headed by Mr. Kerik during his tenure at the Corrections Department. The sole signatory on the
foundation’s accounts was Frederick J. Patrick, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to looting the nonprofit (tax-exempt) corporation. Its stated purpose was to finance programs and activities to strengthen the department.
Mr. Patrick held high-level posts in the department from 1994 until 1998, during the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mayor Giuliani went on to name him to a series of higher level posts, including commissioner of juvenile justice and deputy commissioner of community
affairs in the Police Department.
Mr. Patrick, who spent the stolen money on collect calls he accepted from inmates in city jails and state prisons, some of which officials have said involved phone sex, was sentenced in June 2004 to a year and day in federal prison. He was released in July 2005.
It was unclear yesterday whether the federal investigation was postponed during the 18-month inquiry by city investigators and Bronx prosecutors that led to Mr. Kerik’s guilty plea, or whether it arose from information developed in that inquiry. he original inquiry into the fund was conducted by city investigators from the Department of Investigation and by prosecutors in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. A Department of Investigation spokeswoman, Emily Gest, would not comment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/nyregion/04kerik.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
ADDENDUM The New York City Correction Foundation, was headed by Mr. Kerik.....The sole signatory on the foundation’s accounts was Frederick J. Patrick, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to looting the tax-exempt NPO. Patrick held high-level posts in the department....during the administration of Mayor Giuliani.
Giuliani went on to name him to a series of higher level posts, including commissioner of juvenile justice and deputy commissioner of community affairs in the Police Department. Mr. Patrick spent the stolen money on collect calls he accepted from inmates, some of which officials have said involved phone sex.
Another of Rudy’s appointees stole the city blind. Gay activist Russell Harding-—son of Liberal Party honcho Ray Harding-—enjoyed child porn and trips with gay friends——all on the taxpayers’ dime. Russell was tried and convicted of government fraud.