NY Times: Kerik Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case

November 5, 2009, 12:26 pm
Kerik Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case
By SAM DOLNICK

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.