Since his release from federal prison, former NPYD Commissioner Bernie Kerik can’t catch a break.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani won’t take his calls. His lawsuit against his former attorney, Joe Tacopina, stalled. And federal officials are not allowing him to leave the country to drum up business in the Middle East.
Kerik has, in the grand tradition of some former NYPD commissioners, written a book that is nearly on a par with former Commissioner Howard Safir’s 2003 masterwork, “Security: Policing Your Homeland, Your State, Your City.” That tome is possibly the worst book ever written.
Kerik’s book is called “From Jailer to Jailed.” Remember that before Giuliani appointed him NYPD commissioner, he appointed Kerik correction commissioner. Remember, too, the Bernard B. Kerik Complex, better known as the Tombs (the Manhattan Detention Complex). Kerik’s name was stripped from the complex by Mayor Michael Bloomberg a day after Kerik pleaded guilty to accepting $165,000 in home renovations from a contractor and failing to report a $28,000 loan from a developer. He ended up serving three years in federal prison for tax evasion and for lying to White House officials vetting him for director of Homeland Security.
Last week, the Daily News excerpted his book, which began with a lament that by refusing to take his calls, Giuliani had forsaken his promise to act as godfather to Kerik’s daughters.
And more trouble looms. It comes from a woman who visited him regularly in prison but whom Kerik dropped after his release two years ago. Part therapy, part revenge, she began chronicling their relationship on her blog, which she has said led to threats against her, apparently by Kerik cronies.
Last week, she blogged that the threats were continuing. “Yes, the 40th NYPD Commissioner threatens and harasses me . . . seemingly to intimidate me into abandoning my freedom of speech . . .”
Worse for Bernie, she wrote, “Since Bernard Kerik and I had co-written portions of this book while he was incarcerated, I and my legal counsel have a special interest in its contents as I understand that Bernie is using my work product, talking points etc. WITHOUT my permission, credit or compensation. Stay tuned on that one.”
