http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004683.phpTPM's Ultimate Kerik Scandal List!
By Paul Kiel - November 9, 2007, 6:38PM
No rundown of Bernard Kerik's ethical shortcomings could ever hope to be comprehensive, but we've done our best. So here, without any further ado, is our grand catalogue. Thanks to TPMm research hounds Adrianne Jeffries, Will Thomas and Peter Sheehy and TPMm readers for all the help.
In today's indictment:
-- Bribery. Accepted $255,000 worth of renovations to his apartment in an upscale section of the Bronx from a mob-connected construction company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, that sought his help in winning city contracts. Kerik was Commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections at the time. He already admitted to charges from city prosecutors that the payments constituted an illegal gift.
-- Tax fraud. Kerik failed to report $236,269 in rent for his Upper East Side apartment where he lived from December 2001 to December 2003 with his family. One of the city's biggest real estate developers, Steve Witkoff, paid the $9,650 in monthly rent. Kerik asked for Witkoff's help with the apartment while he was still police commissioner of NYC, and the real estate mogul made the payments because the two "anticipated doing business in the future."
-- More tax fraud. Kerik also failed to disclose $20,000 in consulting fees from a computer software company and $75,953 in royalties for writing his autobiography.
-- Even more tax fraud. Kerik failed to report wages paid to his nanny (more about that below), claimed $80,000 in phony charitable contributions, and falsely claimed a home office deduction for a home he had not moved into yet.
-- False statements. Lied on application for head of Department of Homeland Security about the nanny, payments from the construction company, and other things...