The report said Kerik, who had rejected a plea bargain when he was slapped with the charges in 2007, appeared in the packed courtroom wearing a blue suit and a red tie with a subdued expression, and said, “Guilty, your honour,” as each of the charges were read by Judge Stephen C. Robinson.
Throughout the 90-minute proceeding, Kerik’s lawyer, Michael F. Bachner, rubbed the defendant’s back in support.
According to the NYT, 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.
The last set of charges stemmed from statements Kerik made to the White House during the vetting process after the Bush administration had 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 but as part of the plea deal, prosecutors requested far less time behind bars for 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.
The report said Judge Robinson asked Kerik a series of questions to be sure he was aware of his rights. Kerik, who was jailed last month after his bail was revoked, had been planning to fight the charges in court.
Sentencing was set for February 18, 2010 and Bachner said he would ask that his client 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 Kerik, saying he would take the good with the bad as he mulled sentencing. “There is much good in that full life, I believe.”
It was the same judge who revoked Kerik’s US$500,000 bail last month after he disclosed case information that had been sealed, to the trustee of his legal defense fund.
The judge had said he did not believe Kerik’s claim that the trustee had been hired as a lawyer and was therefore allowed to see the information.
According to the NYT report, before revoking the bail Judge Robinson described Kerik as a “toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance, and I fear that combination leads him to believe his ends justify his means.”
“He sees the court’s rulings as an inconvenience,” Judge Robinson said, “something to be ignored, and an obstacle to be circumvented.”
After the proceedings, the report said, Kerik loosened his tie and removed papers and a wallet from his pockets. He then carefully took off a chain and medallion and handed it to one of his lawyers. He was led away, not in handcuffs, by court officers.
During a hearing last month, Judge Robinson criticized Kerik and his lawyers for what he said were various offences committed by an attorney who heads Kerik’s legal defence fund. The judge said the lawyer, Anthony K. Modafferi, sent e-mail messages to him and to The Washington Times that defamed government prosecutors.
Modafferi violated a consent order because in some of his e-mail messages, he leaked information that indicated he was privy to sealed court papers, Judge Robinson said. The judge had then ordered Kerik to file an affidavit detailing his legal arrangement with Modafferi, whom he said, may end up being called to testify in documents or in court.
The case against Kerik centred on claims that a construction company suspected of having ties to organized crime paid for much of the renovation work at his home in Riverdale in the Bronx, in the hope that he would help the company obtain a city licence. One of the tax charges is directly related to the renovation case.
Kerik, who was the NYPD Commissioner from 2000 to 2001, was offered a plea bargain in 2007 after he was slapped with the charges but rejected the deal as his lawyers said he had paid his taxes and done nothing wrong. The deal would have seen him serving a two-year sentence.
Kerik, who was at one point former US President George W. Bush’s nominee for Homeland Security Secretary, was hired in February 2007 by the Guyana Government as a security adviser. He was hired as a special adviser to President Bharrat Jagdeo and was to provide general advisory services to the president and Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee
His appointment had been greeted with strong criticism, owing to growing allegations about professional misconduct. His contract, which was later ended, was for one year and was said to be renewable. His international security consultancy firm, the Kerik Group, was also contracted to provide services to Trinidad and Tobago. He had held similar contracts in Jordan, Iraq and other Middle Eastern hotspots.
Reports were that federal investigators were exploring a range of allegations about Kerik, who was a leading official under former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The allegations included accusations he conspired to help a former district attorney, Jeanine Pirro, plant listening devices to catch her husband in an extramarital affair. Kerik and Pirro were captured on a state wiretap discussing such a plan.
He was also charged in connection with his acceptance of US$165,000 in free renovations to his Bronx apartment in 1999 from Interstate Industrial Corporation, a New Jersey contractor, or a subsidiary. Last summer in State Supreme Court in the Bronx, Kerik pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour counts and admitted accepting the free work. At the time, his lawyer said Kerik did not owe any federal taxes on the construction work.
