RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.
The Dallas Morning News

The more you hear about Bernard Kerik's messy personal life, the more you begin to think the former New York police commissioner should be cordoned off with orange cones.

When Kerik withdrew his nomination to serve as homeland security secretary late last week, he and his lawyers claimed the reason was what has come to be known as a "nanny eruption." A woman he hired to care for his children turned out to be in the country illegally, and Kerik failed to pay Social Security taxes for her.

Now this whole nanny issue seems like a smoke screen. Other allegations have surfaced - about Kerik having extramarital affairs, accepting cash gifts from a construction company that authorities say is linked to the mob, and pocketing as much as $6 million after receiving, and selling, stock options for serving on the board of an Arizona-based company that sells Taser stun guns and which could conceivably do business with the Homeland Security Department.

Despite all this, Kerik cited his nanny as the sole reason for withdrawing his nomination. In my mind, this raises an ugly possibility: that Kerik is using his nanny problem to divert attention from what many people would consider much more serious allegations.

Kerik should be ashamed of himself for finding yet another creative way to exploit the help. Imagine using such a cynical ploy - a "nanny shield" - to get yourself out of hot water.

Americans are familiar with the story line. Nanny eruptions sidelined not one, but two of President Clinton's nominees for attorney general, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood.

And four years ago, a very similar thing happened to Linda Chavez, President Bush's initial choice for Labor secretary.

Americans don't care about nannies - that is, unless they're looking to hire one. They have grown completely comfortable with the idea of enlisting the help of a complete stranger to raise their kids.

In fact, nannies are so prevalent in America that Americans often forget a couple of inconvenient facts: Every time a family knowingly hires an illegal immigrant as a nanny, it breaks the law. And when the family fails to pay Social Security taxes for the employee, it breaks another law.

In all the huffing and puffing over illegal immigration, Americans have turned out to be remarkably forgiving of their own transgressions in dealing with the nanny assembly line.

And that may be exactly what Bernard Kerik is counting on.

Now his double
affair laid bare

Kerik cheated on wife with Judith Regan
and correction officer


BY RUSS BUETTNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER


Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a secret Battery Park City apartment for the passionate liaisons, the Daily News has learned.
The first relationship, spanning nearly a decade, was with city Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero; the second, and more startling, was with famed publishing titan Judith Regan.

His affair with Regan, the stunningly attractive head of her own book publishing company, lasted for almost a year.

Dramatically, each woman learned of the existence of the other after Pinero discovered a love note left by Regan in the apartment.

The revelations about Kerik's private life come as repercussions over his suitability to be nominated for the post of secretary of homeland security. Kerik, 49, married with two children from his current marriage, withdrew his name from consideration in a sudden and unexpected call to the White House on Friday night.

Kerik said that questions about the immigration status of his family's former nanny and failure to pay taxes prompted his decision to walk away from the job. But speculation has continued that there were deeper and more controversial reasons.

Yesterday, The News reported that a six-month investigation showed Kerik had accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts without proper disclosure, and had ties to a construction company that investigators believe is linked to the mob.

Now revelations about his private life also cast a shadow on his suitability for one of the administration's highest-profile cabinet positions.

Asked about the affairs and the secret love nest yesterday, Joseph Tacopina, Kerik's attorney, said Kerik and Regan had denied the affair in the past.

Tacopina said Kerik's "friendship" with Pinero ended in 1996.

He would not comment on the apartment.

Regan could not be reached for comment.

But sources with intimate knowledge of both affairs painted a picture of passionate, and sometimes volatile, liaisons.

The tumultuous Regan-Kerik romance carried on for months, through the writing, publication and promotion of his autobiography, "The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice," which Regan's company published.

The two worked out together most mornings at the New York Sports Club in Rockefeller Center and often dined at Fresco restaurant in midtown, according to sources.

Kerik visited Regan's Central Park West apartment almost daily, and occasionally stayed the night, with his police detail camped outside.

They became so close that Kerik's two nieces stayed with Regan while the commissioner's sister was hospitalized, one source said.

Regan visited the Battery Park apartment several times, the source said, but apparently never knew that his actual residence at that time was an apartment on E. 79th St.

Furnished corporate rentals similar to the unit Kerik used, according to the sources, are advertised at monthly rents from $3,150 to $6,200. Representatives of Milstein Properties, whichs owns the Liberty View, could not be reached yesterday.

After one encounter, Regan left a romantic note, which was later discovered by Pinero. The two later spoke on the phone.

"She wanted to know if Judith was still seeing him," the source said. "She told Regan about their affair and Regan told her she was shocked."

Many close to Kerik in the mid-1990s assumed that someday he would marry Pinero, a career correction officer described as spirited and attractive by friends, a close friend and a former high-ranking Correction Department source said.

The relationship continued after Kerik married Hala Matli, a hygienist in his dentist's office whom he met in mid-1996 and wed in November 1998, according to multiple sources close to Pinero and Kerik.

Kerik's affair with Pinero is at the center of two lawsuits against the city, both brought by correction employees who claimed Kerik retaliated after they crossed her.

The city settled one last year for $250,000, The News reported at the time.

The second suit, in which Pinero and Kerik were deposed last week, was filed by former Deputy Warden Eric DeRavin 3rd, who claims Kerik quashed his promotion after he reprimanded Pinero. The city demanded a gag order on both depositions.

Pinero declined to comment.

But sources with whom she has spoken said that on her trips to the Battery Park City apartment, Pinero was shuttled in through a side service door.

"She's going to be my wife for as long we live. I support her 100%," said Pinero's husband, who asked that his name be withheld.

Yesterday, Kerik remained at his $1.2 million home in Franklin Lakes, N.J.

After announcing his decision to withdraw his name from the top homeland security post, he remained at the house over the weekend, emerging only twice to talk to media.

On both occasions, he stressed that he had made the decision to withdraw his name from consideration solely on the basis of problems with the family nanny.

He said he had realized on Wednesday evening that there were issues with the woman's immigration status and tax status.

He added that he wanted to avoid any embarrassment to the President, with whom he had stood side-by-side at a press conference announcing his nomination just a week before.

Kerik, who had a national profile after the events of 9/11, had been one of Bush's most enthusiastic public supporters during the election campaign

Where was Rudy in the Kerik mess?
'America's mayor' should explain ties to discredited security nominee


In the wake of the Bernard Kerik fiasco, nearly everyone who endorsed the former New York Police Commissioner looks naïve at best and irresponsible at worst. The President's attempt to place this disreputable figure in charge of the Department of Homeland Security reads like a bad sitcom plot.
Such blunders are inevitable when the chief executive prefers political fidelity and tough posturing to competence and judgment. It's hardly surprising that George W. Bush would be attracted to a figure like Mr. Kerik, who apparently compensates for his meager credentials with extra swaggering.

The White House counsel's office, under the direction of Alberto Gonzales, our likely next Attorney General, has yet to justify its failure to uncover Mr. Kerik's checkered history. The President's advisors have faulted Mr. Kerik himself, as if the government could simply depend on nominees for self-vetting. Evidently they were unable to discover anything he didn't remember to tell them. (Their strange passivity reflects the same Bush administration attitude that trusts major corporations to report their own environmental pollution and consumer swindling.)

Any exercise in shifting blame inevitably pointed to Mr. Kerik's most important endorser: his mentor, confidant, employer and business partner, Rudolph W. Giuliani. Whether the former Mayor actually accepts any responsibility for the Kerik error wasn't clear from his public statements, but he apologized to Mr. Bush at a White House dinner.

Unfortunately for Mr. Giuliani, no apology will satisfy the press appetite for tawdry Kerik tales. Very rarely does a story exposing abuse of police authority include such beguiling details as a jewel-encrusted badge, a mobbed-up crony, a multimillion-dollar stock trade and a flashy mistress. The more we hear about the bodyguard and driver whom Mr. Giuliani promoted to police commissioner, the more we also learn about the man who likes to be called America's Mayor.

The scrutinizing of Mr. Kerik reopened questions about the Giuliani administration that once seemed to have been closed forever on Sept. 11, 2001. Everything has changed since that day, perhaps -- but not everything has been forgotten.

A government that prides itself on ostentatious religiosity and moralizing is probably most embarrassed by the sexual peccadilloes of its New York backers. But what could embarrass Mr. Giuliani is his wayward protégé's coddling of a city contractor with alleged Mafia connections.

That firm, known as Interstate Industrial Corporation, hired Mr. Kerik's close friend Lawrence Ray to overcome obstacles to doing business with the city. Interstate's main problem was that city officials suspected the New Jersey company and its principal, Frank DiTommaso, of long and intimate ties with organized crime. According to reports in the Daily News and The New York Times, Mr. Ray gave Mr. Kerik "more than $7,000 in cash and other gifts while Mr. Kerik was commissioner of correction and the police."

At some point in 1999, when he was running the city's prisons, Mr. Kerik reportedly spoke up for Interstate in a chat with Raymond V. Casey, the chief of enforcement for the city's Trade Waste Commission. Although Mr. Kerik says he doesn't recall the conversation, Mr. Casey told reporters that Mr. Kerik had vouched for the integrity of Mr. Ray, the Interstate lobbyist, which he considered a "weird" sort of endorsement by the then-corrections commissioner. Mr. Ray was indicted in 2000 for his role in a mob-connected financial fraud. And it later turned out that Mr. Kerik was also quite friendly with Mr. DiTommaso, who vehemently denies doing business with the Gambino and DeCavalcante crime families, as government agencies have alleged.

Turning the multibillion-dollar Homeland Security budget over to a hack who took money and favors in that seedy milieu doesn't seem prudent, but it almost happened.

So the Mayor who sponsored his rise has some explaining to do. What did Mr. Giuliani know about his corrections commissioner's "weird" relationships and behavior when he promoted him to police commissioner? He might well have learned about the Interstate matter from Mr. Casey, a regulator he appointed who also happens to be his cousin.

Two months before Mr. Kerik was named Mr. Giuliani's police commissioner, the city Department of Investigation opened an inquiry into Mr. Kerik's relationship with Mr. DiTommaso. Mr. Giuliani says he was not aware of the probe at the time.

The former Mayor has welcomed Mr. Kerik back into the fold at Giuliani Partners, where the disappointed office-seeker will presumably remain discreet about their shared secrets.

Much like the President he plans to succeed in office, Mr. Giuliani as Mayor increasingly surrounded himself with a tight circle of lackeys and cronies. His post-disaster performance obscured those negative qualities for a while, and rightly so. But now we're reminded how the former prosecutor discarded important values of independence and integrity when they conflicted with his political needs.

He'll make a terrific Presidential candidate.

Adulterous affairs are not corruption. Here, from a law library if this helps:

CORRUPTION - An act done with an intent to give some advantage inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. It includes bribery, but is more comprehensive; because an act may be corruptly done, though the advantage to be derived from it be not offered by another.

This does nothing to diminish Giuliani's qualification for President. Whether or not it hurts him is another question. But it does nothing as far as qualifications go. This is all on Kerik.

__________________
All you need to know about the energy crisis:
ANWR Exploration Republicans: 91% Supported. Democrats: 86% Opposed.
Coal-to-liquid R's: 90% YES. D's: 78% NO.
Oil Shale Exploration R's: 90% YES. D's: 86% NO.
Outer Continental Shelf Exploration R's: 81% YES. D's: 83% NO.
Increased Refinery Capacity R's: 97% YES. D's: 96% NO

SUMMARY: 91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of America’s own oil and gas. 86% of House Democrats have historically voted against.

read the stort again:

<<<Kerik's affair with Pinero is at the center of two lawsuits against the city, both brought by correction employees who claimed Kerik retaliated after they crossed her.

The city settled one last year for $250,000, The News reported at the time.

The second suit, in which Pinero and Kerik were deposed last week, was filed by former Deputy Warden Eric DeRavin 3rd, who claims Kerik quashed his promotion after he reprimanded Pinero. The city demanded a gag order on both depositions. >>>

It's on Guliani - unless he was a blind Mayor?

Kerik has been the subject of investigations for over two years and Guliani claims he never knew?

Nothing you mentioned above is corruption. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. It doesn't make him a nice person, but not corrupt either.

__________________
All you need to know about the energy crisis:
ANWR Exploration Republicans: 91% Supported. Democrats: 86% Opposed.
Coal-to-liquid R's: 90% YES. D's: 78% NO.
Oil Shale Exploration R's: 90% YES. D's: 86% NO.
Outer Continental Shelf Exploration R's: 81% YES. D's: 83% NO.
Increased Refinery Capacity R's: 97% YES. D's: 96% NO

SUMMARY: 91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of America’s own oil and gas. 86% of House Democrats have historically voted against.

<<Kerik quashed his promotion after he reprimanded Pinero>>>

ESPECIALLY for public employees.

not to mention how was able to afford the apartment......

Then the "mob" thing......

Guliani - see no evil......

I liked David Letterman's take on this. He said that with all the things coming out about Kerik, he should absolutely forget about the HS job, he's Presidential material.

LOL!

__________________
<<Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.>>