Bernard Kerik’s guilty plea: Corruption case underscores fraud of “homeland security”

The case against Kerik revolved around his receiving $165,000 worth of unpaid construction work to convert two apartments in a luxury building in Riverdale into one huge unit, described by press reports as “opulent.”

The work was performed in late 1999 and early 2000, when he was Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s correction commissioner. The company said to have paid for this valuable favor for the official in charge of the city’s sprawling jail complex, New Jersey-based Interstate Industrial Corporation, was alleged by officials in that state to have had ties to the Gambino organized crime family. At the time, the company was seeking contracts with New York City.

Kerik quickly realized the cash value of the work performed by the allegedly mob-linked company, selling the apartment in 2002 for nearly triple what he had paid for it less than three years earlier.

Prosecutors had apparently threatened to bring felony bribery charges against Kerik before he accepted the plea deal. The reported substance of the accusations against the former official is that in return for services rendered—including the suspect firm’s hiring of Kerik’s brother and a friend who had served as the best man at Kerik’s wedding—the then-correction commissioner acted as the company’s advocate within the Giuliani administration, arguing that it be approved for contracts.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jul2006/bker-01.shtml