BIG GUN: Bernie Kerik wielded power as NYPD commissioner in 2000 (above), interim minister of interior of Iraq in 2003 and correction commissioner in 1999 (right). (NY Post: Tamara Beckwith)
(Stuart Clarke)
(NY Post: Luiz C. Ribeiro)
BIG GUN: Bernie Kerik wielded power as NYPD commissioner in 2000 (top, left), interim minister of interior of Iraq in 2003 (top, center) and correction commissioner in 1999 (top, right). (
)
Disgraced former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik did his best Sgt. Schultz imitation yesterday — saying he knows nothing dozens of times at the trial of two pals charged with lying about $255,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment.
Kerik — once in line to be Homeland Security chief but now federal-prison inmate No. 84888-054 — said, “I don’t know,” “I don’t recall,” or “I don’t have a recollection,” more than three dozen times in Bronx Supreme Court.
He was brought in to testify at the perjury trial of brothers Frank and Peter DiTommaso, who allegedly lied to a grand jury that their Interstate Industrial Corp. didn’t pay for renovations at Kerik’s condo.
Kerik is in prison until next October in part because he finally admitted years ago that his pals did pay for that work — which was performed at the same time he was lobbying officials to give municipal contracts to the DiTommasos’ allegedly mob-linked company.
The crooked cop’s memory tended to fail him yesterday when he was asked about people who gave him money when he was the city’s Correction Department commissioner and later New York’s top cop under his then-close friend Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Kerik, 57, often said he couldn’t recall when asked whether the money was a gift or a loan — such as when an FBI informant named Larry Ray forked over $34,000 to pay for Kerik’s wedding, at which Ray was best man.
But Kerik’s memory really turned to mush when prosecutor Stuart Levy tried to get him to testify that the total $255,000 in renovations to his Riverside apartment were paid for by the DiTommaso brothers’ New Jersey-based waste-management company.
Kerik repeatedly refused to finger his old friends and instead three times suggested that a contractor named Tim Woods had footed the bill.
Kerik noted that he paid Woods $30,000 after the job was done — prompting an incredulous Levy to list all of the work done to not only connect separate apartments but to add new marble floors, kitchen appliances, an entryway rotunda and a Jacuzzi.
“You felt all that was going to cost $30,000?” Levy asked skeptically.
Kerik admitted, “It was nice — it was much nicer than I anticipated.”
For 10 angry minutes, Levy pressed Kerik, at one point asking him, “Do you believe that you did anything wrong?”
“No, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Kerik said, rolling his eyes.
A steaming Levy then pulled out the transcripts of Kerik’s 2009 federal guilty plea, in which he explicitly admitted that Interstate and its subsidiaries paid for the renovations.
“Now you’re telling us you didn’t do anything wrong?” Levy fumed.
Kerik, raising his voice as he slammed his right hand down on the railing in front of him, could only sputter, “You do know that, you do know that . . . ”
“Who paid?!” Levy demanded. “Who paid?!”
Kerik replied, “Mr. Levy, Tim Woods did the renovations. As far as who paid, you’re going to have to ask him.”
Levy then lugged out the transcript from Kerik’s 2006 guilty plea in Bronx Supreme Court — in which Kerik also admitted Interstate paid for the work.
After having his own words read back to him, Kerik paused, then looked at Levy and said, “That’s what it appears. Yes, sir.”
Levy then shot a look at Kerik.
“That’s it,” the prosecutor snapped, ending his questioning.