Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has refused a plea deal to serve a reduced prison sentence on federal tax and wiretap conspiracy charges in the US.
Lawyers for Kerik, who was recently hired as a security advisor to President Bharrat Jagdeo, were told that federal investigators would discontinue their probe of him if he pleaded guilty to the charges. According to yesterday’s New York Times, the plea offer was made during a 90-minute meeting last month between Perry Carbone and Elliott Jacobson, two assistant United States attorneys in Manhattan, and one of Kerik’s lawyers, Kenneth Breen. “Mr. Kerik rejected the plea offer because he paid his taxes and did nothing wrong,” Breen was quoted as saying by the Times. Some news outlets suggested that the deal involved having Kerik serve a two-year sentence.
Kerik, who was at one point President George W. Bush’s nominee for Home-land Security Secretary, was recently hired by the Guyana Government as a security adviser. He is to provide general advisory services to Jagdeo and the Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee.
Kerik’s appointment has been greeted with much criticism, owing to growing allegations about professional misconduct. Kerik’s contract is for one year and it is renewable. Recently, his international security consultancy firm, the Kerik Group, was contracted to provide its services to Trinidad and Tobago. He has held similar contracts in Jordan, Iraq and other Middle Eastern hotspots.
According to the Times, federal investigators have been exploring a range of allegations about Kerik, who was a leading official under New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, including 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.
Investigators have also been reviewing the circumstances under which Kerik accepted US$165,000 in free renovations to his Bronx apartment in 1999 from Interstate Industrial Corpora-tion, 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.
Breen declined to discuss the negotiations in detail and it is unclear how the proposed charges relate to Kerik’s conversations with Pirro or to the work on his apartment. But the proposed deal would have required Kerik to serve some time in prison, and according to the Times is one indication of how seriously federal prosecutors view the allegations. Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a professor at Fordham University School of Law, told the newspaper that when plea negotiations fail, federal prosecutors nearly always seek an indictment.
Kerik was chosen by President Bush for the Homeland Security post, but withdrew, citing his failure to pay taxes on an illegal immigrant whom he had hired as his nanny.
The Times report also said an indictment would be a setback for Giuliani’s presidential campaign as he had supported Kerik’s failed bid to become Homeland Security Director.
