July 4, 2006
NYC
So Complex, and Yet So Disgraceful
By CLYDE HABERMAN, NY TIMES

NOW that it is no longer the name of a building, "Bernard B. Kerik Complex" might serve other purposes. It could be used, for example, to describe a certain personality type.

Actually, this column offered the same idea a year and a half ago. That was when scandal unraveled Mr. Kerik's nomination as Homeland Security secretary, which had been urged upon the White House by his patron, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. The Bernard B. Kerik Complex, it was suggested then, could be the name for a condition that leads someone to fantasize that he is qualified for a high-level position way over his head.

But in light of the latest events, perhaps a different definition is in order. The Bernard B. Kerik Complex could apply to a person who disgraces himself while displaying neither self-awareness nor remorse.

We asked the American Psychiatric Association what it thought, but staff members there made it plain that Kerik Complex was not destined for the organization's diagnostic manual. Even so, there is nothing to stop lay people from using the term, which came to mind after Mr. Kerik left a courthouse in the Bronx last Friday.

He had just pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors to head off a possible felony indictment, rooted in a gift that he received from a company accused of having mob ties.

There he was, a former police commissioner and former correction commissioner, now one more guy with a criminal record. His reaction?

"The last year and a half has been a tremendous burden on me and my family," he said outside the courthouse. But "it's over," he said, and "from this point on, it's back to work," making money as a security consultant to clients like the government of Jordan.

Any remorse? Did he, a reporter asked, feel sorry? Mr. Kerik's response was to turn to his lawyer and say, "Let's go" — the Bernard B. Kerik Complex in full flower.

These last few days have not been glorious for law enforcement in New York.

Mr. Kerik's shame coincided with a decision by a federal judge in Brooklyn to reverse the convictions of two retired city detectives described as onetime assassins for the mob. No question, the two men had committed "heinous and violent crimes," Judge Jack B. Weinstein said. But he ruled — one might also say rued — that the statute of limitations had run out on the principal charge against them: racketeering conspiracy.

There is now a distinct possibility that the former detectives, Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, will go free. Who knows? Maybe they will even figure out how to exploit their notoriety to make a buck. It's been done before.

They could, for instance, shill for a casino should they make it back to Las Vegas, where they settled after leaving New York. Sounds crazy? No crazier than Willie Sutton's doing a commercial for a Connecticut bank in 1970, soon after getting out of Attica State Prison. There is a fine line between famous and infamous; sometimes it is erased altogether.

CLEARLY, Mr. Kerik cannot be lumped with mob hit men. But he did invite disgrace. Not that he is about to let it undermine his chances to prosper.

In fact, despite the embarrassment to himself and his career godfather, Mr. Giuliani, he may have caught a lucky break when he lost the Homeland Security job. It could have been he, and not Michael Chertoff, getting the grief for post-Katrina bungling and for the much-criticized allocation of domestic security money.

Aside from having to pay a fine, the worst that happened to Mr. Kerik was that his name fell from the Lower Manhattan jail that he and Mr. Giuliani had designated the Bernard B. Kerik Complex just before they left office in 2001. That renaming was regarded by some New Yorkers, even then, as a most immodest act by an administration not known for modesty.

As a building, the Bernard B. Kerik Complex is no more, hence its availability for other uses. Over the weekend, on orders from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the jail's previous name was restored: the Manhattan Detention Complex.

Signs were switched in the dead of night, presumably because Mr. Bloomberg wanted a minimum of fuss. A formal ceremony would not have been misguided, though. It could have been held at the jail, of course. But another possibility might have been St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, home of the Rudolph W. Giuliani Trauma Center.

In light of all that has happened, some would say that Mr. Kerik's Homeland Security nomination qualified as a Rudolph Giuliani trauma.

E-mail: haberman@nytimes.com

July 3, 2006
Disgraced and Penalized, Kerik Finds His Name Stripped Off Jail
By SEWELL CHAN, NY TIMES

Bernard B. Kerik left his mark on the city's Department of Correction, reducing violence among inmates and cutting the use of overtime and sick leave by employees.

But yesterday, his mark was literally stripped from the Manhattan jail, in a gesture that seemed to seal his fall from grace and underscore how quickly a good reputation can be lost.

The 881-bed jail — commonly known as the Tombs for the original Egyptian Revival structure built in 1838, or for the grim atmosphere, depending on whom you believe — will no longer be called the Bernard B. Kerik Complex. It will again be called the Manhattan Detention Complex, as it was before Dec. 12, 2001, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani dedicated the two buildings that make up the complex in honor of Mr. Kerik.

A City Hall spokesman said yesterday that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made the decision to change the jail's name on Saturday, a day after Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty in State Supreme Court in the Bronx to two misdemeanors: accepting $165,000 worth of home renovations from a contractor and failing to report a $28,000 loan from a real estate developer.

The mayor's decision took effect almost immediately. Between 1 and 3 a.m. yesterday, workers replaced the old signs bearing Mr. Kerik's name at the jail, at 125 White Street, with ones bearing the new name.

The change was so sudden that it startled, and pleased, some correction officers and visitors.

"No jail needs to be named after a crook," said Monique N. Randolph, 30, of Brownsville, Brooklyn, who was visiting a relative at the jail yesterday. She said that she had followed the Kerik case closely and was disappointed that he would only have to pay $221,000 in fines and penalties.

"I think he should do time in jail just like the other criminals," Ms. Randolph said.

Jessica T. Hale, 32, a manager at a Chelsea art gallery who lives on Mosco Street in Chinatown, near the jail, applauded Mr. Bloomberg's decision. "It's ironic that an institution of correction would be named after someone who needs correction," she said. "His name should be off the building."

Mr. Kerik was the city's correction commissioner from 1998 to 2000. His lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, said his client was unfazed by the decision. "Having his name on a building or not doesn't change his legacy as correction commissioner," he said. He emphasized that the charges to which Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty were "unclassified misdemeanors" and not violations of the state penal code.

The jail comprises two buildings connected by a pedestrian bridge: the 500-bed north tower, opened in 1990, and the 381-bed south tower, part of the complex at 100 Centre Street that opened in 1941. To be sure, the jail — known in the past as the Manhattan House of Detention — was hardly the only place in the city to be named for a disgraced, notorious or morally questionable figure.

There is the James J. Walker Park in Greenwich Village, named for New York's mayor from 1926 to 1932, who was driven from office and fled to Europe amid corruption charges.

And just north of City Hall is the Tweed Courthouse, officially the Old New York County Courthouse but universally known for William M. Tweed, the corrupt Tammany Hall boss who died in jail in 1878 — the same year the Beaux-Arts courthouse was completed. It now houses the city's Department of Education.

Leonard Benardo, co-author of "Brooklyn by Name," which New York University Press is publishing this month, said that more than 70 places in Brooklyn are named for slaveholders. He also cited Corbin Place, named for Austin Corbin, a virulent anti-Semite who consolidated the Long Island Rail Road.

History can be fickle. Underhill Avenue and Underhill Playground in Brooklyn are named for Capt. John Underhill, a once-celebrated English colonist, whom some scholars now revile for slaughtering American Indians in the 17th century. Fort Tryon Park, at the tip of Manhattan, is named for William Tryon, the last colonial governor of New York, notorious for brutal treatment of rebels during the Revolution but seen by some as an efficient administrator.

July 1, 2006
Former Police Commissioner Pleads Guilty to Taking Gift
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, NY TIMES

Bernard B. Kerik, who often traveled with a large entourage when he was New York City police commissioner, walked into a mostly empty courtroom in the Bronx yesterday, accompanied only by lawyers and a few friends.

Mr. Kerik came in quickly and sat at the defense table in the high-ceilinged room paneled in polished oak. He had been fingerprinted and photographed about an hour earlier and was now set to plead guilty to two misdemeanors: failing to report a loan and accepting a gift — renovations to his apartment worth $165,000.

The man who once ran the nation's largest police force had become "like every other perp," in the words of Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn of the city's Department of Investigation, who along with the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, oversaw the investigation that led to the plea.

Mr. Kerik perched on the edge of his seat and seemed restless. He fidgeted with his knees, wiggling them slightly beneath the table, as he waited to make his admissions — words that were carefully drafted in weeks of talks between his lawyers and prosecutors — before Justice John P. Collins of State Supreme Court.

He wore a dark blue suit with an American flag pin in his lapel. No family members were present, nor were any of the retinue of officials he had met in his 14 years as a detective and a city official, a curious absence in a world where officers and police unions sometimes pack courtrooms to show their support for accused brethren.

In a brisk proceeding, Mr. Kerik spoke briefly and quietly. He acknowledged accepting the renovations in late 1999 and in 2000 from a large New Jersey contractor, Interstate Industrial Corporation, which has been accused of having ties to organized crime, an accusation it has repeatedly denied. He said he also talked to city officials and Trade Waste regulators about the company, which was seeking a license from the city. At the time, he was the city's correction commissioner.

"I admit that I took a gift from the Interstate companies or a subsidiary, and thinking they were clean, I spoke to city officials about Interstate on two occasions and on another occasion permitted my office to be used for a meeting between Trade Waste authorities and representatives of Interstate," Mr. Kerik said.

Under the plea, Mr. Kerik, who has a security consulting business, will pay $221,000 in fines and penalties for accepting the renovations and failing to report the loan — $28,000 from a friend, the real estate developer Nathan Berman — to the Conflict of Interest Board.

The agreement, which ended an exhaustive 18-month grand jury investigation by the offices of Mr. Johnson and Ms. Hearn, focused on Interstate and Mr. Kerik's relationship with the company, allowed him to avoid jail time, more serious bribery charges and a felony conviction.

It was nonetheless a stunning fall for Mr. Kerik, 50, who began his remarkable ascent in city government in 1993. Then a third-grade police detective, he became a volunteer bodyguard and chauffeur for Rudolph W. Giuliani in his mayoral campaign. After his election, Mr. Giuliani appointed him to a high-level post in the Correction Department, where he rose to the commissioner's office. The mayor later made him police commissioner, a post he held at the time of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

At a news conference with Mr. Johnson at his office after the plea, Ms. Hearn sought to make clear that Mr. Kerik was treated like a criminal. "He was arrested and booked, plain and simple," she said, "just like every other perp who gets arrested and processed by the agencies that he used to lead. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Kerik now has a criminal record."

Mr. Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, called Ms. Hearn's comments hyperbole, saying that Mr. Kerik had not been processed through central booking like a common criminal and had been afforded the opportunity to be processed in the district attorney's office and to walk to court.

"The lack of professionalism exhibited by that statement proves her to be bitter that her investigation fell short," he said.

Mr. Kerik seemed unrepentant when he stood in front of a cluster of reporters and television cameras on the sidewalk in front of the Bronx courthouse.

"You know, it's funny; over the last year and a half I've watched and listened as people have picked apart my 30-year career in fighting crime and fighting injustice and tried to destroy everything I've ever done," he said.

When a reporter asked if he was sorry, Mr. Kerik, who had finished his remarks and had not planned to take questions, turned from the cameras and said to one of his lawyers, "Let's go."

He climbed into a black chauffeur-driven sedan and was driven away.

At the news conference, Mr. Johnson said that the prosecutors had initially weighed more serious charges, but that the nature of the evidence, the difficulty of proving the quid pro quo and legal questions about the statute of limitations prevented them from going forward. Ms. Hearn credited reporting in The Daily News with prompting the investigation in December 2004 after Mr. Kerik withdrew his nomination for homeland security secretary.

Mr. Johnson said that Mr. Kerik's conduct had done much to weaken the public's trust in its officials, but that he hoped the conviction and fines would help repair the damage. "For me, I think that the fact that the citizens of this city have heard an admission of what was done is a major, major factor."

Justice Collins called the outcome "fair, equitable and proper," and while he acknowledged Mr. Kerik's service on 9/11 and in the days thereafter, he said he had "violated the law for personal gain."

Mr. Giuliani said in a statement that Mr. Kerik "has acknowledged his violations" but "should be evaluated in light of his service to the United States of America and the city of New York."

Among the more surprising aspects of Mr. Kerik's case has been the disclosure that much of the information about his ties to Interstate was known by lawyers inside the Department of Investigation, but it never affected his closely contested candidacy for police commissioner in 2000. At the time, the lawyers knew that Interstate's owners, whom it was investigating for ties to organized crime, had established a relationship with him and had hired his brother and the best man at his wedding.

The agency learned of the relationship in June 2000, and the commissioner at the time, Edward J. Kuriansky, talked to Mr. Kerik about it, officials have said.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Hearn said that by the commissioner's estimation, those facts alone — without the knowledge available now about Interstate's work on the apartment — did not constitute a "smoking gun" that would have been "fatal" to Mr. Kerik's candidacy.

Asked if the facts known in 2000 had ever been passed along to Mr. Giuliani, who has said he was never told about Mr. Kerik's relationship with the company, Ms. Hearn did not answer directly. But instead, she said through a spokeswoman that Mr. Kuriansky went to meetings with the mayor and his senior staff every day.

"D.O.I. has been told that references about Bernie Kerik's nomination to police commissioner were made in the context of one or more of those meetings," said the spokeswoman, Emily Gest. "You'll have to ask Mr. Kuriansky to whom he spoke about Mr. Kerik's candidacy and what was discussed specifically. D.O.I. will not speak about Ed Kuriansky's memory."

Several efforts to reach Mr. Kuriansky by phone and through family members were unsuccessful.

The proceeding yesterday in the Bronx had an unusual impact miles away in Lower Manhattan. There, it left the Bernard B. Kerik Correctional Complex, a city jail on Centre Street, which Mr. Giuliani named for his friend, as perhaps the only jail in the country named for a man with a criminal record.

July 1, 2006
After All the Ups, a Lawman's Life Has Many Downs
By ALAN FEUER

Correction Appended
There are many ways to describe the tumultuous career of Bernard B. Kerik, and nearly all of them require use of the word "but."

Mr. Kerik was the son of a prostitute, but rose to lead the New York Police Department as its commissioner.

Mr. Kerik was a high school dropout and an enlisted man, but turned himself into a jet-setting international consultant, advising everyone from Middle Eastern potentates to the Iraqi police.

Mr. Kerik was tapped by President Bush to be the federal Homeland Security secretary, but yesterday he pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanors in Bronx Supreme Court, an inglorious pile on 161st Street where signs in the men's room remind one to flush.

Even after his brush with the law, "but" applied. At the plea hearing, Mr. Kerik, 50, confessed before a judge. But, moments later at a news conference on the courthouse steps, he proclaimed that he was going back to work.

"It wasn't the usual, that's for sure," Thomas W. Repetto, a former president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, said of Mr. Kerik's 30-year career in the law. Mr. Repetto said that, typically, city police commissioners are men of distinction and accomplishment like Army generals or former prosecutors, men who had made a mark in the department or in another walk of life.

"Someone who is well known," Mr. Repetto explained, "whereas Kerik never got the rank of sergeant and was not well known in any field."

Then again, professional notoriety and an officially accomplished résumé were never Mr. Kerik's paths to success, for he was a man who seemed to rely on ties to friends in power and on a rough-edged, energetic, blustery personal style.

He was the bodyguard and driver for Rudolph W. Giuliani, to whom he has remained immensely loyal. As police commissioner, and earlier, as commissioner of the city's Department of Correction, he would often break free of the ivory tower of headquarters, visiting police details in Times Square or dropping by jails in the middle of the night to see what was going on.

His journey to power began humbly in rough-and-tumble neighborhoods in New Jersey and Ohio, where his mother abandoned the family when he was 2. In his 2001 memoir, "The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice," he wrote that he only learned, while researching the book, that his mother had died from a severe blow to the head, possibly killed by her pimp.

He also wrote that, as he aged, he had "a flair for truancy" and dropped out of high school to join the Army and became a military police officer and martial arts specialist. While stationed in South Korea, he had a child out of wedlock. Returning to New Jersey, he took a $50,000-a-year job as a jail warden in Passaic County, but gave that up to pursue a dream: becoming a street cop in New York.

He joined the New York Police Department in 1985, becoming an undercover narcotics man known for his ponytail and diamond earrings. He befriended Mr. Giuliani during a mayoral campaign and was soon appointed to a top job at Correction, where one official told the department's commissioner, "Congratulations, you've just hired Rambo."

He went on to run the department, establishing a reputation as a reformer, before assuming control of the Police Department in 2000. His 16-month tenure not only included Sept. 11, but also was marked by declining crime and a rise in morale that had been sapped by pay disputes and by the lingering cloud from the Abner Louima police torture case and the police shooting of Amadou Diallo.

President Bush first met Mr. Kerik near the ruins of ground zero on Sept 14, 2001. Mr. Bush eventually sent Mr. Kerik to Iraq for three and a half months in 2003 with a mandate to help solidify the Iraqi police.

Then, a year later, came the nomination as Homeland Security secretary, and with it, intense scrutiny. Questions were raised about clandestine love affairs, unsavory business ties and a nanny he employed. In a spectacular public crash, Mr. Kerik withdrew his name for the job only a week after it had been suggested.

Five days later, he also announced his resignation from Giuliani Partners, Mr. Giuliani's consulting firm, saying his personal troubles had become a distraction. In fact, his troubles were about to multiply: the Bronx district attorney's office had opened an investigation into allegations that, among other things, Mr. Kerik illegally accepted renovations of his Bronx apartment.

Even then the "buts" continued. On a regular basis, articles appeared in the city's daily newspapers about the Bronx investigation, but Mr. Kerik himself appeared on Fox News as a talking head, discussing things like the fate of Michael Chertoff, who eventually got the job as Homeland Security secretary, and the impact of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

And in keeping with the ambivalence that has run throughout his career, there was even a sense of the equivocal in the charges to which Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty yesterday in court. They were not, for instance, felonies but misdemeanors. They were not even violations of state law, but infractions of the City Charter and the City Administrative Code.

Outside the courthouse yesterday, Mr. Kerik told reporters that the last year and a half had been a "tremendous burden" as people "picked apart his 30-year career."

But, then he added, "From this point on, it's back to work."

Correction: July 4, 2006
An article on Saturday about the ups and downs in the life of Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner convicted of misdemeanor ethics charges, misspelled the surname and misstated the middle initial of the former president of the Citizens Crime Commission who said Mr. Kerik's 30-year career as a lawman was unusual. He is Thomas A. Reppetto, not Thomas W. Repetto.

June 30, 2006
As Ex-Police Commissioner Goes to Court, Questions Persist About Background Check
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, NY TIMES

If Bernard B. Kerik admits today, as expected, that he failed to report a gift that investigators say came from a city contractor with ties to organized crime, it will likely settle a criminal inquiry that has trailed the former police commissioner.

But the legal proceeding in State Supreme Court in the Bronx is likely to leave one major question unanswered:

Did city investigators, who knew of Mr. Kerik's relationship with the contractor, ever raise it as an issue in 2000 when they were asked to check his background for the police post?

At today's proceeding, Mr. Kerik is expected to acknowledge that while serving as correction commissioner, he paid only a fraction of the cost of a $200,000 renovation to his Bronx apartment that was started in 1999 by associates of the contractor, Interstate Industrial.

While the renovation has come to light only recently, the city's Department of Investigation had long known of Mr. Kerik's relationship with Interstate.

City records show that two months before he was made police commissioner by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, city investigators knew that Mr. Kerik was friendly with the owner of Interstate, a New Jersey construction company seeking a city license. And investigators knew the company had recently hired both Mr. Kerik's brother and the friend who was best man at his wedding.

Mr. Giuliani has said that none of this information was brought to his attention before he made his decision to appoint Mr. Kerik.

Most of the information did not surface until 18 months ago, when Mr. Kerik's nomination as Homeland Security secretary unraveled in a swirl of questions. At the time, city investigators said they would review the way Mr. Kerik's background check was conducted.

After the court proceeding today, the city's investigations commissioner, Rose Gill Hearn, whose staff assisted Bronx prosecutors on the grand jury investigation, is scheduled to join the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, at a news conference, where they may well address some of the remaining questions.

Mr. Kerik plans to plead to two misdemeanor charges, and is expected to admit failing to report accepting the renovation, which was performed by associates of Interstate when it was pursuing business with the city, a person with information on the agreement said yesterday.

He is also expected to admit failing to report a $29,000 loan from a friend for the down payment on the apartment, the person said.

The grand jury had reviewed possible felony bribery charges.

Under the arrangement, Mr. Kerik would not serve any time in jail and would keep his private investigator's license and his pistol license.

Nonetheless, the criminal inquiry has been a considerable setback to Mr. Kerik, a former police detective who rose quickly in city government under Mr. Giuliani. As commissioner, he directed the city's response to the World Trade Center attacks, work that was the basis for President Bush's decision to nominate him for the Homeland Security job.

Mr. Kerik quickly withdrew from consideration for the federal job, citing possible tax and immigration problems involving his family's nanny. His withdrawal was followed by a stream of accusations about personal, financial and ethical improprieties, as well as disclosures about his relationship with one of the owners of Interstate, Frank DiTommaso.

Mr. Kerik and Mr. DiTommaso met in 1998 through Lawrence Ray, the best man at Mr. Kerik's wedding, Mr. DiTommaso has said. The two men became friendly, riding motorcycles and socializing, and Mr. DiTommaso later hired Mr. Kerik's brother to an $85,000 a year post at a related company's transfer station at a time when the company, Interstate Materials, was seeking a permanent license to operate the station. The company also hired Mr. Ray as its security director.

City investigators first learned of Mr. Kerik's relationship with Mr. DiTommaso during depositions they took in June 2000 as part of the licensing procedure. Mr. DiTommaso said in a deposition that he would sometimes visit Mr. Kerik in his Correction Department office.

Asked under oath why he had hired Mr. Ray as his security director, Mr. DiTommaso said he did so in part because Mr. Kerik vouched for him.

Earlier that year, Mr. Kerik had notified city investigators that Mr. Ray was charged with fraud in an unrelated matter. Based on that disclosure and questions about Mr. Kerik's relationship with Mr. DiTommaso, Investigations Commissioner Edward J. Kuriansky questioned Mr. Kerik, city officials have said, but little is known about the substance or outcome of that conversation. Mr. Kuriansky did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The accusations that Mr. Kerik accepted the renovations surfaced last year in court papers filed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, which moved to revoke the company's license to work on Atlantic City casinos. The agency cited what it contended were Interstate's longstanding ties to organized crime, an accusation the company has repeatedly denied.

The company has also denied paying for Mr. Kerik's renovation or seeking favors from him.

But the New Jersey authorities said that Mr. Kerik had arranged for an Interstate representative to meet in his office with city regulatory investigators looking into the license application, had given the company advice about pending regulatory issues, and had accepted the apartment renovations.