Crooks and Cronies, cont....

The New York Times
November 19, 2005
About New York
A Lapse in Judgment, Capitalized
By DAN BARRY

BERNARD B. KERIK, who once led the police force of this city, uses such convoluted language on the Web site for his consulting company - "an internationally respected global provider of Homeland Security and industrial security services" - that he all but challenges us to crack the code. Having been trained in the Ovaltine school of decoding, we accept.

The Web site describes his company this way: "Born from decades of public service at the highest levels and steeped in universally heralded crisis management experience honed during one of America's darkest hours, THE KERIK GROUP provides an international clientele with unparalleled Homeland Security solutions."

Assume for argument's sake that this approximates English. Now, note how the phrase "homeland security" is always capitalized. If we were to capitalize every word, We Would Go Mad. But Mr. Kerik grants uppercase status to homeland security to signal that He Means Business.

The Web site also boasts that President Bush nominated Mr. Kerik to become his Secretary of Homeland Security. Impressive, the reader thinks. Must mean that this guy is really quali-hey, that rings a bell. O.K., long story short:

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani recommends his business partner and former police commissioner and President Bush makes the announcement, and everyone is like, yay, Bernie, but then Bernie tells the president he can't head the agency that oversees immigration because he has a little tax problem with his nanny, and then Rudy is all like, I'm sorry, and the White House says yeah, well, and Bernie's other, uh, errors in judgment become public and he resigns from Rudy Inc. and is all like, crying, but like a man, not like a baby.

Then Mr. Kerik created The Kerik Group. Where Homeland Security Is Always Uppercased. Note too the phrase, "honed during one of America's darkest hours." This is code for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, after which Mr. Kerik was glued to Mr. Giuliani's side during news conferences. A Republican close to the White House even suggested at the time that it had nominated Mr. Kerik because he had that "9/11 glow."

The Web site, which flashes photographs of Mr. Kerik with President Bush and with Mayor Giuliani at ground zero, over and over again, also lists "pre-employment screening" among The Kerik Group's client services. Too bad the agency wasn't around in 2000, when Mr. Giuliani could have used such services to vet its next police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik.

Earlier this week, New Jersey officials cited Mr. Kerik in court papers as an example of why a company with apparent mob connections should be banned from work in Atlantic City casinos. This is worth repeating: They presented THE FORMER POLICE COMMISSIONER OF NEW YORK CITY as the classic knot-headed public official who thinks his new friends like him for who he is, not what he is.

In 1999 and 2000, the officials said, when Mr. Kerik was the city's correction commissioner - but not yet police commissioner - a mob-connected company paid for extensive renovations to his Bronx apartment when it was seeking a license to do business with the city. The worth of the work amounted to more than $200,000, they said, although Mr. Kerik paid only $17,800.

MR. KERIK was unavailable for comment because he is consulting in bomb-rattled Jordan this week, although he briefly returned to New York the other night to attend the Country Music Awards in Madison Square Garden.

His lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, called these allegations "old news," because Mr. Kerik has already "copped" to certain lapses of judgment. He said Mr. Kerik paid $30,000 for the work, and was unaware of any involvement by the company owners, Frank and Peter DiTommaso, who have denied the charge. And, he said, the DiTommasos never got that city license, puncturing any suggestion of a quid pro quo. "Bernie doesn't know whether a handle is brass-plated or gold," he added. "He got the bills, and he paid them, period, end of story."

A few months after his apartment's extreme makeover, Mr. Kerik became police commissioner. If only his "internationally respected" consulting group had been around back then to ask questions on behalf of an administration that often boasted of its intolerance for the mob.

Q: Mr. Kerik, you have a very nice kitchen. Love that granite countertop. And the bathroom is to die for. You paid only $17,800 for all this? A: $30,000, actually.

Q: Still. Nicely done. One more question. You got a number for this contractor?

E-mail: dabarry@nytimes.com