Bernard Kerik

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Bernard Bailey "Bernie" Kerik, CBE, (born September 4, 1955 in Newark, New Jersey) is a former American law-enforcement officer. Kerik was Police Commissioner of the City of New York from 2000 to 2001, under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In December 2004, George W. Bush nominated Kerik as Secretary of Homeland Security. A week later, Kerik withdrew his nomination, explaining that he had employed an illegal immigrant as a nanny; subsequently, numerous allegations surfaced which would likely have led to a confirmation battle. In 2006, Kerik pled guilty to two unrelated ethics violations after an investigation by the Bronx District Attorney's Office, and was ordered to pay $221,000. He is currently under Federal investigation: A grand jury issued a multi-count indictment on November 8, 2007 alleging conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and lying to the IRS. Kerik surrendered to authorities on Friday, November 9, 2007, was arraigned before Magistrate Judge George Yanthis in White Plains, New York Federal Court, and pled not guilty to all 16 charges.^[1][2][3]

Contents 1 Personal 1.1 Marriages and children 2 Military and police experience 3 Commissioner of NYC Department of Correction 4 New York City Police Commissioner 5 Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq 6 Consulting work 7 Nomination as Secretary of Homeland Security 8 Investigation results 9 Federal indictment 9.1 Witnesses involved 10 See also 11 References 12 External links 13 Bibliography

[edit] Personal

The son of Donald Raymond Kerik, Sr. and Patricia Joann Bailey, Kerik was raised in Paterson, New Jersey. In 2001, Kerik published a memoir, The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice.^[4] In this book, he revealed that his parents divorced when he was three years old, and that his mother, an alcoholic and a prostitute, was murdered when he was nine - possibly by her pimp.^[5]

Kerik attended Eastside High School,^[6] but dropped out to enlist in the army.^[7] He later received a General Equivalency Diploma. After leaving the New York City Police Department, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Administration from Empire State College of the State University of New York in 2002.^[8]

Kerik has worked as a Military Police Officer (MP), a bodyguard, a jail warden and an undercover narcotics detective. He is also a 5th degree black belt master instructor in the martial arts, who holds black belts in both Japanese Karate and Korean tae kwon do.

In 1987, when he was working as a New York Police officer, Kerik declared bankruptcy, citing his credit card bills, loan payments, Sears and J.C. Penney tabs, and alimony payments.^[9]

[edit] Marriages and children

Kerik's first child was a daughter born out of wedlock, when he was 19 and serving in South Korea as a military policeman. The daughter, Yi Sa Lisa Marie Jordan, was born in October 1975. Her mother is a woman identified as Sun-ja. Kerik was subsequently removed from duty by the military command, and left both women behind when he left South Korea in February 1976. In his 2001 autobiography, Kerik called the episode “a mistake I will always regret, and I pray to God that one day I can make it right”. From his daughter, he has two grandchildren, Jaden Yi Jordan and Marcus Angelo Jordan ^[10][11]

Kerik has subsequently been married three times. His first marriage was to Linda Hales on August 10, 1978, when he was nearly 24 and she was 27. Kerik kept this marriage secret, and even his close friends knew nothing of the marriage. He continued to conceal it thereafter, and it was never mentioned in his best-selling autobiography.^[12] They separated in 1982 and were officially divorced June 6, 1983.^[13] Linda — now remarried and known as Linda H Priest — is the Clerk of Superior Court in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Kerik's second marriage — which he claimed in his autobiography to be his first marriage — was to Jacqueline Llerena of New Jersey. It lasted from September 3, 1983 to July 1992. Together they had one son, Joseph Michael (born June 11, 1985). As of December 2004, Joseph was in training at the Passaic County Police Academy.^[14]

Kerik's third marriage was to Syria-born Hala Matli (born February 3, 1972). He met her in 1996, when she was his dental hygentist. They married on November 1, 1998, and they have two daughters: Celine Christina (born March 3, 2000) and Angelina Amber (born October 30, 2002). Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City, is their godfather.^[15]

Kerik has had several extramarital affairs, including one while Hala was pregnant. He had a ten year affair with Jeannette Pinero, a married NYC Dept. Of Corrections officer.^[16] He also had a year long affair with Judith Regan, the publisher of his autobiography. The couple reportedly met in an apartment that had been donated for the use of emergency workers at ground zero, but which Kerik kept for himself.^[17]

Kerik presently lives in a $2.2 million home in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.^[18]

[edit] Military and police experience

Kerik enlisted in the U.S. Army in July, 1974 and became a Military policeman (MP) assigned to Korea as an MP Sentry Dog Handler and to the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina assuming Military Police duties and teaching hand to hand combat to Special Operations and Special Forces Personnel at the John F. Kennedy Unconventional Warfare Center. In 1977, he received an honorable discharge from the Army whereby he became a member of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office (NC.)In April, 1978, he was employed by the Morrison Knudson Saudi Arabia Consortium (MKSAC) as a Security Officer on the King Khalid Military City in Hafar Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia for nearly two and a half years.

Kerik worked from 1982 to 1984 as chief of investigations for the security office at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, one of the kingdom's premier hospitals, where members of the royal family are treated. Six members of the hospital security staff, including Kerik, were fired and deported after an investigation in 1984 by the Saudi secret police.^[19]

Kerik served as Warden of the Passaic County jail, the largest county adult correctional facility in New Jersey, from January to July 1986. There, he also served as the Department's Training Officer and Commander of the Special Weapons and Operations units, and received the Medal of Honor from the City of Paterson and a Presidential Commendation from President Ronald Reagan, both for heroism.^{[citation needed]}

Kerik served with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) from July 1986 to May 1994, in both uniformed and plain clothes duty. While assigned to the US Justice Department's New York Drug Enforcement Task Force, he was one of two case agents responsible for overseeing one of the most substantial narcotic investigations in the history of the department, resulting in the conviction of more than sixty members of the Cali Cartel. He earned thirty medals for meritorious and heroic service, including the department's Medal for Valor for his involvement in a gun battle in which his partner was shot and wounded.^{[citation needed]} In December 1997, he was appointed by the Mayor to the New York City Gambling Control Commission. Kerik also chaired the Michael Buczek Foundation's annual fund-raiser that honors law enforcement across the nation.

[edit] Commissioner of NYC Department of Correction

Kerik served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, a position to which he was appointed on January 1, 1998.^{[citation needed]} He previously served for three years as the Department of Correction's First Deputy Commissioner and, prior to that, as the agency's Executive Assistant to the Commissioner and Director of the Investigations Division.

[edit] New York City Police Commissioner

Kerik was appointed the 40th New York City Police Commissioner by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on August 21, 2000. He left office at the end of Giuliani's term on December 31, 2001. More than half of mayor Giuliani's cabinet opposed Kerik's appointment. Kerik's lack of a college degree was among the cabinet's major concerns.^[20] Possession of a college degree was a requirement established in 1985 by then-Commissioner Benjamin Ward for anyone promoted above the rank of Captain. There have been questions raised regarding the fact that the City of New York's Department of Investigations bypassed the normal vetting process in appointing Kerik police commissioner. The accusation among others were that his chief qualification appeared to be that he had served as Giuliani’s driver and bodyguard.^[21][22] As the leader of the largest municipal police department in the United States, Commissioner Kerik oversaw a uniformed force of more than 41,000 officers, a civilian force of more than 14,500 which included the 3,500 member School Safety Division, 2,000-member Traffic Control Division, and 3500 member Auxiliary Police Division, and an annual budget of more than $3.2 billion. Kerik was serving as Police Commissioner during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and oversaw the law-enforcement response.

After the attacks, Kerik took control of an apartment donated for the recovery efforts at Ground Zero, using it as a "love nest" to meet with his girl friends, including Judith Regan, the publisher of The Lost Son.^[23]

On February 13, 2002, Kerik was appointed an honorary Commander of Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.

[edit] Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq

In May 2003, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Kerik was appointed by the George W. Bush Administration as the Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq and Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Presidential Envoy to Iraq, L. Paul Bremer. He was responsible for reconstituting the Iraqi Ministry of Interior which had dissolved into the community during the U.S. led coalition's invasion of Iraq. The Iraq Interior consisted of the National Police, Intelligence Service and Border and Customs Police. In Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book on Iraq, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Kerik was said to be arrogant, incompetent, and undedicated in his position.

Kerik was also criticized by George Packer in his book, Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq.^[24]:

"He [Army Lt. Colonel in charge of Kirkuk reconstruction] was afraid that the new Kirkuk police force, which the battalion he commanded had already set up, would have to be scrapped when Bernard Kerik - the colorful former New York police chief - finally got around to announcing his national plan. Instead, Kerik spent his time in Baghdad going on raids with South African mercenaries while his house in New Jersey underwent renovation. He went home after just three months, leaving almost nothing behind, while the Lt. Colonel spent almost a year in Kirkuk."

Retired US Army General Ricardo Sanchez also criticized Kerik's performance in Iraq, stating:

"I would be hard-pressed to identify a major national-level success that his organization accomplished in that time. They'd get tips and they'd go and actually raid a whorehouse. Their focus becomes trying to do tactical police operations in the city of Baghdad, when in fact there is a much greater mission that they should be doing, which is training the police. He is a very energetic guy. He is very confident - overconfident to an extent - and he is very superficial in his understanding of the requirements of his job. His whole contribution was a waste of time and effort."^[25]

[edit] Consulting work

Following his departure from the New York City Police Department, he was employed by Giuliani Partners, a consulting firm formed by the former Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani. He served as a Senior Vice President at Giuliani Partners and as Chief Executive Officer of Giuliani-Kerik LLC, an affiliate of Giuliani Partners. Kerik resigned from these positions in December, 2004. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Kerik served from May to September 2003 as Iraq’s interim Minister of Interior where he oversaw the re-constitution and reconstruction of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, including the national police service and border enforcement units. Kerik is currently the Chairman & CEO of The Kerik Group LLC, a New York City based consulting firm specializing in Homeland Security, Counter-Terrorism and Law Enforcement and Jail/Prison Management services.

[edit] Nomination as Secretary of Homeland Security

On December 3, 2004, Kerik was nominated by President Bush to succeed Tom Ridge as United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales vetted Kerik during that nomination period.^[26] But on December 10, after a week of press scrutiny, Kerik withdrew acceptance of the nomination. Kerik stated that he had unknowingly hired an undocumented worker as a nanny and housekeeper who had used someone else's social security number. Similar violations of immigration law had previously caused the withdrawal of the nominations of Linda Chavez as Secretary of Labor by George W. Bush and of Zoe Baird as Attorney General by Bill Clinton.

Shortly after withdrawal of the nomination, the press reported on several other incidents which might also have posed difficulties in gaining confirmation by the Senate. These include: questions regarding Kerik's sale of stock in Taser International shortly before the release of an Amnesty International report critical of the company's stun-gun product; a sexual harassment lawsuit; an affair with Judith Regan; allegations of misuse of police personnel and property for personal benefit; connections with a construction company suspected of having ties to organized crime; and failure to comply with ethics rules on gifts.^[27]

[edit] Investigation results

On June 30, 2006, after an eighteen month investigation conducted by the Bronx District Attorney's Office, Kerik plead guilty to two ethics violations (unclassified misdemeanors) and was ordered to pay $221,000 in fines at the 10-minute hearing.

Kerik acknowledged that he failed to document a personal loan on his annual New York City Conflict of Interest Report (a violation of the New York City Administrative Code) and accepting a gift from a New Jersey construction firm attempting to do business with the city, (a violation of the New York City Charter). During the court hearing, the Assistant Bronx District Attorney stated that "although some may draw inferences from this plea, there is no direct evidence of an agreement between Kerik and the New Jersey construction firm". Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg immediately removed Kerik's name from the Manhattan Detention Complex, a New York jail that had been renamed in Kerik's honor on December 21, 2001 by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.^[28]

Subsequently, on July 20, 2006, the two New Jersey contractors were indicted on perjury charges, accused of lying to the Bronx grand jury in the Kerik investigation.^[29]

On March 31, 2007, The Associated Press reported that Kerik rejected a plea bargain agreement with federal prosecutors who are investigating allegations of tax evasion for failing to declare the gifts that he received from the New Jersey contractors. Kerik is also under investigation for conspiracy to eavesdrop on the conversations of the husband of Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro (Republican), Albert Pirro, whom Ms. Pirro suspected of having an affair.^[30] Kerik will be indicted on charges of bribery, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, providing false information and conspiracy to eavesdrop. He agreed to surrender on November 9, 2007 to federal authorities.^[31]

[edit] Federal indictment

On November 8th, 2007, in White Plains, New York, Bernard Kerik was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy, tax fraud and making false statements. Prosecutors say Kerik received about $255,000 in renovations to his Riverdale, Bronx, apartment from a company seeking to do business with the city of New York and concealed the income from the Internal Revenue Service.^[32] The indictment also charges Kerik made several false statements to the White House (in his background information statement regarding his Department of Homeland Security appointment) and other federal officials. If convicted on all 16 counts in the indictment, Kerik could face a maximum sentence of 142 years in prison and $4.7 million in fines. He was released upon payment of a $500,000 bond.^[33][34]

[edit] Witnesses involved

Giuliani aides will be called to testify as witnesses in the case. They include:

• Raymond Casey, former head of the Trade Waste Commission (and cousin of Giuliani)^[35][36]
• Michael Caruso, former inspector general with the city Department of Inspection

A meeting in Tribeca, at Walker's Bar, in July 1999, between Kerik, Casey and Caruso, dealt with Casey's investigation of Interstate Industrial Corporation. Interstate employed the best man at Kerik's wedding, as well as Kerik's brother, Donald. Casey was inquiring into allegations that Interstate had connections with the Gambino Crime Family. Kerik has admitted that Interstate secretly paid to renovate Kerik's apartment.^[37]

The new U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has a close relationship with former mayor Rudy Giuliani, as confirmed by a presidential spokesperson.^[38] Mukasey and Giuliani have been friends since working at the same law firm in the early 1970s.^[39] Mukasey has pledged to recuse himself from cases involving Giuliani. However, neither presidential spokespersons nor Mukasey would return reporters' inquiries into whether Mukasey would recuse himself from the Kerik case.^[40][41]

Michael Mukasey's son, Marc Mukasey, has been assigned by Rudy Giuliani's campaign to block Kerik's legal defense team from interviewing witnesses that might assist his defense.^[42] (When Giuliani joined the Bracewell firm, effecting the company's change to "Bracewell & Giuliani," he brought Marc Mukasey into the firm.^[43]

[edit] See also

• Rudy Giuliani promotions of Bernard Kerik

Preceded by John Bonazzi	Warden of the Passaic County, New Jersey Jail 1986	Succeeded by Robert Carrella
Preceded by ?	Executive Assistant to the Commissioner and Director of the Investigations Division, New York City Department of Correction 1994–1995	Succeeded by Richard Pagan
Preceded by Robert Daly	First Deputy Commissioner, New York City Department of Correction 1995–1997	Succeeded by Gary M. Lanigan
Preceded by Michael P. Jacobson	Commissioner, New York City Department of Correction 1998–2000	Succeeded by Gary M. Lanigan
Preceded by Howard Safir	NYPD Commissioner 2000–2001	Succeeded by Raymond W. Kelly
Preceded by Robert Gifford	Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq 2003	Succeeded by Nuri al-Badran

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• This article was originally based on information from New York City's official website [1].
• Newsday article, May 23 2003 announcing Kerik's appointment to post in Iraq [2]
• Tom Brokaw MSNBC Interview July 14 2003 [3]
• Only In America - biographical article by Arnaud de Borchgrave in The Washington Times, December 5, 2004
• Kerik's Surveillance Activity in Saudi Arabia Is Disputed, John Mintz and Lucy Shackelford, Washington Post, Dec. 10, 2004
• Homeland Security Nominee Withdraws
• Why Did Bernard Kerik Really Bow Out? Newsweek, Dec. 11, 2004
• Bernard Kerik problems
• Kerik hired as Security Advisor to Guyana Government

[edit] Bibliography

• War Stories: Behind the Silver and Gold Shields Thomas J. Ward, Bernard B. Kerik (Looseleaf Law Publications, 2002) ISBN 1-889031-58-5
• The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice Bernard B. Kerik (Regan Books, 2001) ISBN 0-06-000901-2 (autobiography) [4]
• In the Line of Duty Bernard B. Kerik (Regan Books, 2001)
• Imperial Life in the Emerald City Rajiv Chandrasekaran