Ex-head of NY police pleads guilty to corruption
By Christine Kearney, 2009/11/05
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WHITE PLAINS, New York, Nov. 5, 2009 (Reuters) — Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying to White House officials and tax evasion charges in a deal that could send him to prison for almost three years.

Kerik, who as head of the police department stood beside former Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the time of the September 11, 2001, attacks, also admitted receiving apartment renovations from a construction firm suspected of organized crime ties and that he helped the company win city contracts.

Once considered a star in law enforcement and national security, Kerik saw his career unravel when President George W. Bush nominated him in 2004 for U.S. Homeland Security secretary. Checks into his background led to the criminal charges.

Stocky, with a shaved head, Kerik, 54, looked somber in federal court in White Plains, New York, where he pleaded guilty to eight charges in the deal.

His corruption trial had been due to start next week, and he faced up to 30 years in prison on the most serious charge.

Now he is likely to receive 27 to 33 months in prison under the plea deal. Formal sentencing is set for February 8, 2010.

Judge Stephen Robinson, at the hearing, called Kerik "not a one-dimensional character" and said he would take his achievements into consideration at sentencing.

Kerik wiped away tears as the judge spoke.

"I think this is a very sad day," Robinson said. "But I think you have had a full life."

Kerik, a former detective, was once Giuliani's driver, later became head of the city's jails and in 2000 and 2001 headed the largest police department in the United States.

When Kerik was nominated to become Homeland Security secretary, disclosures about his failure to pay taxes for a nanny undermined his consideration for the job and he withdrew from consideration.

Kerik pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, lying on a bank loan application and lying to the federal government, including lying to White House officials about his association with anyone doing business with the city of New York.

"I falsely denied to the White House official that I had any such dealings," Kerik told the judge.

Kerik and Giuliani were good friends who became business partners after they left office at the conclusion of Giuliani's stint as mayor. Kerik has since left the partnership.

Kerik could become a campaign issue next year if Giuliani decides to run for governor of New York.

He has been in prison since last month, during which time he checked himself into the psychiatric unit for several days.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Eric Walsh)

November 5, 2009, 12:26 pm
Kerik Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case
By Sam Dolnick, City Room
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Updated, 12:45 p.m. | Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner, pleaded guilty to eight felonies in a Federal District Court in White Plains on Thursday morning. Mr. Kerik, who will be sentenced in February, faces 27 to 33 months in prison.

Wearing a blue suit and a red tie, Mr. Kerik, with a subdued expression, appeared in the packed courtroom and said, “Guilty, your honor,” as each of the charges were read by Judge Stephen C. Robinson. Throughout the 90-minute proceeding, Mr. Kerik’s lawyer, Michael F. Bachner, rubbed the defendant’s back in support.

Mr. Kerik, 54, pleaded guilty to two counts of tax fraud, one count of making a false statement on a loan application — the most serious — and five separate counts of making false statements to the federal government. These last charges stemmed from statements Mr. Kerik made to the White House during the vetting process after the Bush administration nominated him to lead the Department of Homeland Security. He later withdrew his name.

The loan application charge could have resulted in a maximum of 30 years in prison. As part of Mr. Kerik’s plea deal, prosecutors requested far less time behind bars for Mr. Kerik, who had also been commissioner of the city’s Correction Department.

One charge that had been expected, depriving the public of his honest services as a government official, was not addressed.

Judge Robinson asked Mr. Kerik a series questions to be sure he was aware of his rights. Mr. Kerik, who was jailed in October, had been planning to fight the charges in court. Sentencing was set for Feb. 18. Mr. Bachner said he would ask that Mr. Kerik be freed on bail prior to that, and the judge said he would be receptive to such a request.

“I think you had a very full life,” Judge Robinson told Mr. Kerik, saying he would take the good with the bad as he mulled sentencing. “There is much good in that full life, I believe.”

The case against Mr. Kerik centered on claims that a construction company suspected of having ties to organized crime paid for much of the renovation work at Mr. Kerik’s home in Riverdale, in the Bronx, in the hope that he would help the company obtain a city license. One of the tax charges is directly related to the renovation case.


A BIOGRAPHY OF
MAYOR RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI Mayor Giuliani

In 1944, Rudolph W. Giuliani was born to a working class family in Brooklyn, New York. As the grandson of Italian immigrants, Mayor Giuliani learned a strong work ethic and a deep respect for America's ideal of equal opportunity. He attended Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School (Class of '61) in Brooklyn, Manhattan College (Class of '65) in the Bronx and New York University Law School in Manhattan, graduating magna cum laude in 1968.

Upon graduation, Rudy Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd MacMahon, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. In 1970, Giuliani joined the office of the U.S. Attorney. At age 29, he was named Chief of the Narcotics Unit and rose to serve as executive US Attorney. In 1975, Giuliani was recruited to Washington, D.C., where he was named Associate Deputy Attorney General and chief of staff to the Deputy Attorney General. From 1977 to 1981, Giuliani returned to New York to practice law at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler.

In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General, the third highest position in the Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised all of the US Attorney Offices' Federal law enforcement agencies, the Bureau of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the US Marshals.

In 1983, Giuliani was appointed US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he spearheaded the effort to jail drug dealers, fight organized crime, break the web of corruption in government, and prosecute white-collar criminals. Few US Attorneys in history can match his record of 4,152 convictions with only 25 reversals.

In 1989, Giuliani entered the race for mayor of New York City as a candidate of the Republican and Liberal parties, losing by the closest margin in City history. However in 1993, his campaign focusing on quality of life, crime, business and education made him the 107th Mayor of the City of New York. In 1997 he was re-elected by a wide margin, carrying four out of New York City's five boroughs.

As Mayor, Rudy Giuliani has returned accountability to City government and improved the quality of life for all New Yorkers. Under his leadership, overall crime is down 57%, murder has been reduced 65%, and New York City - once infamous around the world for its dangerous streets - has been recognized by the F.B.I. as the safest large city in America for the past five years.

New York City's law enforcement strategies have become models for other cities around the world, particularly the CompStat program, which won the 1996 Innovations in Government Award from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. CompStat allows police to statistically monitor criminal activity on specific street corners as well as citywide, holding precinct commanders accountable for criminal activity in their neighborhoods. Because this data is updated constantly, it enables the police to become a proactive force in fighting crime, stopping crime trends before they become crime waves that negatively effect the quality of life for neighborhood residents.

When Mayor Giuliani took office, one out of every seven New Yorkers was on welfare. Mayor Giuliani has returned the work ethic to the center of City life by implementing the largest and most successful welfare-to-work initiative in the country, cutting welfare rolls in half while moving over 640,000 individuals from dependency on the government to the dignity of self-sufficiency. In addition, Giuliani has enacted a record of over $2.5 billion in tax reductions - including the commercial rent tax, personal income tax, the hotel occupancy tax, and the sales tax on clothing for purchases up to $110 dollars. In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars have been returned to the private sector as a result of the Mayor's aggressive campaign to root out organized crime's influence over the Fulton Fish Market, the private garbage hauling industry, and wholesale food markets throughout the City. These reforms, combined with the fiscal discipline which enabled the Mayor to turn an inherited $2.3 billion dollar budget deficit into a multi-billion dollar surplus, have led the City to an era of broad-based growth with a record 450,000 new private sector jobs created in the past seven years. As news of the City's resurgence has spread around the nation and the world, tourism has grown to record levels.

Mayor Giuliani is committed to nurturing and empowering New York City's children. By creating the Administration for Children's Services, New York City now has an accountable, proactive and effective protector for our City's most vulnerable children that is recognized as a national model. Moreover, New York City is working everyday to find loving families for children requiring adoption. The City has completed a record number of adoptions since 1996 - more than 20,000 - marking a dramatic 65% increase over the previous six-year period. Mayor Giuliani has also been a leader in getting health insurance to children through the innovative HealthStat initiative, which uses computer technology to coordinate a citywide effort to enroll children in existing health insurance programs. To date, 96,000 eligible children and families have been given access to health insurance through the HealthStat initiative. These improvements have increased hope and opportunity for all New York City's children and laid the foundation for our City to be even stronger in the 21st century.

To turn around the nation's largest urban public education system, Giuliani has worked tirelessly to restore accountability and raise standards throughout the City's schools. Student-teacher ratios are at an all-time low, while the annual operating budget for New York City's public schools has increased from $8 billion to $12 billion. Bureaucratic roadblocks to meaningful reform such as social promotion and principal tenure have ended, while programs such as bilingual education and special education have been reformed for the first time in a quarter century. Under the Mayor's leadership, New York City has introduced innovative new instructional programs that improve reading skills, give all students access to computers, and restore arts education as a fundamental part of the school curriculum. In the past year, these successful education initiatives have been accompanied by the establishment of 300-book libraries in every classroom and weekend classes for science and English instruction. In October 2000, the Mayor launched the New York City Charter School Improvement Fund, the first fund ever offered by a city government to help charter schools with equipment and facilities costs. The fund is the most recent example of the Mayor's commitment to both providing quality educational alternatives to all City families, regardless of their income, and to spurring the New York City public schools to improve through competition.

Under Rudy Giuliani's leadership, New York City has become the best-known example of the resurgence of urban America. From his success at cleaning up Times Square and other public spaces around the City to closing the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, Mayor Giuliani has worked tirelessly to pass New York to the next generation better and more beautiful than it was before he entered office.

New York has established itself as the City others look toward when they want to study the most innovative strategies for reducing crime, reforming welfare, encouraging economic growth, and improving the overall quality of life. In the past decade, New York City's population has reached a record 8 million residents, confirming that New York is again a City on the rise, full of optimism and confidence that its best days are still ahead of it.

THE CITY OF NEW YORK
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
NEW YORK, NY 10007
TELEPHONE: (212) 788-3000