Here’s a good reason not to sue your lawyer.
Celebrity-repping attorney Joe Tacopina is siccing the feds on his former client, disgraced former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik, saying they should hit him with perjury charges.
Lawyer Judd Burstein, who is defending Tacopina in a lawsuit filed against him by Kerik, claims the former top cop flip-flopped under oath.
It all started in 2009 when Kerik pleaded guilty under oath to federal tax fraud charges and lying to the White House during his vetting for Homeland Security chief. However, Kerik now claims he was always innocent and documents these beliefs in a sworn complaint included in the federal malpractice suit he slapped Tacopina with in January.
The suit alleges Tacopina conned Kerik into copping the plea years earlier.
“Mr. Kerik has made a mockery of the oath he took when he pled guilty by filing the sworn complaint in the malpractice suit,” Burstein wrote Thursday to Assistant US Attorneys Elliot Jacobson and Perry Carbone, asking them to pursue perjury charges against the fallen, former 9/11 hero.
Kerik in 2006 pleaded guilty in Bronx Supreme Court to ethics violations related to him accepting $255,000 in renovations from a mobbed-up firm seeking to do city business.
He now claims in his federal suit that listening to his ex-lawyer Tacopina and wrongfully pleading guilty created a “snowball of criminal investigations” that ultimately forced him to cop additional pleas three years later to the federal charges.
Kerik spent three years in the slammer before being released in 2012.
Besides representing Kerik in the Bronx case, Tacopina also briefly represented him prior to the ex-top cop being charged in 2007 with federal crimes. In his letter to the feds, Burstein notes that Kerik also swore “falsely” under oath in the complaint that Tacopina later double-crossed him by disclosing “privileged materials” to federal prosecutors.
Burstein filed additional legal papers Thursday seeking court-ordered monetary sanctions against Kerik and one of his lawyers, Athan Tsimpedes, for filing a “frivolous” suit that Burstein claims they know is filled with mistruths.
When told of the perjury claims, Kerik lawyer Raymond Mansolillo shouted, “That’s just nonsense. Period!” He declined further comment.
Tacopina — who vehemently denies Kerik’s claims against him — responded to the January malpractice suit by hitting his ex-client with a defamation suit days later in Manhattan federal court. It claims Kerik fed outrageous “lies” about him to the Daily News for a December “hit piece.”
Burstein told The Post he hopes prosecutors “do what’s right” and pursue perjury charges against Kerik.
“This is a person who has a public platform and has been brazenly waving his thumbs at the judicial system,” he said. “Ignoring what Bernie Kerik has done would be similar to a policeman standing around watching someone rob a bank.”
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s office said he had yet to see the filings and declined comment.
Tacopina’s long list of A-list clients include shamed Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, whom he recently represented in a failed bid to get A-Rod’s Major League Baseball doping ban overturned.