New York – United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, today announced that Bernard Kerik, a former New York City Police Commissioner and Commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections, was indicted by a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia on charges of making false statements to White House officials during his vetting for the position of secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security.
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According to the Indictment:
Kerik, in 1999 and 2000–when he was the New York City Commissioner of Corrections and then the City’s Police Commissioner–spoke to City regulators on behalf of contractors who were seeking one or more permits to do business in and with the City. The contractors then spent more than $255,000 renovating KERIK’s apartment in Riverdale, New York. Thereafter, in 2004, when Kerik was under consideration by the White House for the position of Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, Kerik gave false and misleading answers to questions by White House officials about his relationship with the contractors.
In particular, and among other things, the Indictment alleges that Kerik falsely denied that there was any possible concern the President should have about Kerik’s relationship with the contractors, and that as a public official he had had any financial dealings with individuals seeking to do business with the City; and that Kerik sent an e-mail to a White House official containing false and misleading statements concerning the renovations to the apartment in Riverdale.
Charges similar to those in today’s indictment were initially brought as part of an indictment returned in the Southern District of New York in November 2007 but were dismissed from that indictment because the crimes are alleged to have occurred in the District of Columbia and not in the Southern District of New York.
If convicted, Kerik faces a maximum prison sentence of five years and a maximum fine of $250,000 on eac
this reflects very poolry on Rudy giuliani and george w. bush.
kerik was rudy’s best buddy whom he promoted and pleaded with bush to consider for DHS secretary to be the next homeland security chief. how the mighty have fallen.
this will haunt Rudy if he runs for governor.
OK… talk about overreaching. This is the third time this guy has been indicted on the exact same set of charges. In fact these are the same charges that were dismissed by a NY Federal judge on May 13th. After the Ted Steven’s and KPMG, you’d think that someone would say, enough is enough. As for Rudy’s run for Governor and after witnessing the government’s behavior, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that the real target here wasn’t Kerik, but Rudy himself.