A federal judge ripped Bernie Kerik Wednesday while rejecting the disgraced former NYPD commissioner’s second request for access to investigation records tied to the criminal case that sent him to prison five years ago.
Kerik had hoped to unseal the records to use in his bitter legal fight against his former lawyer Joe Tacopina.
Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska sided with the feds again by refusing to lift a six-year-old protective order on records related to Kerik’s 2009 guilty plea to charges of tax fraud and lying to the White House while being vetted for the Homeland Security Secretary post.
She also said Kerik’s request “appears to be nothing more than an attempt to end run around ordinary discovery procedures” in his pending malpractice suit against the celebrity lawyer, which alleges Tacopina knowingly allowed Kerik to perjure himself in an earlier Bronx guilty plea and also gave the feds privileged information to his then-client in 2007.
Preska in May rejected Kerik’s access to the sealed records – which he claims will offer insight in how Tacopina allegedly turned his back on him – but allowed him to make the new request seeking materials in the case file specifically related to Tacopina.
In her seven-page opinion Wednesday, Preska said she still finds “no basis” for vacating the protective order. She also said the “Tacopina documents contain details about the government’s criminal investigations, including information about cooperating witnesses. Disclosure of the documents might reveal investigatory tactics and might also discourage potential cooperators in ongoing future government investigations.”
In her earlier, May opinion, Judge Preska also sided with the feds by ripping Kerik and his lawyers for not returning the same investigation records they obtained years ago through discovery now that Kerik has served his time. She ordered the boxes of records to be returned in immediately, which Kerik since has handed over.
The feds have alleged Kerik violated the 2008 protective order by allegedly using information in them to juice up his suit against Tacopina, who denies all the allegations against him.
Assistant US attorneys Elliott Jacobson and Perry Carbone have asked Preska to hold a hearing to decide whether the protective order was violated, and the judge Wednesday ordered all parties involved to get back to her by August 1 on how they would like to proceed on the matter. Kerik and his lawyer Tim Parlatore are staring at possible contempt-of-court criminal charges if she sides with the feds.
Days after being sued, Tacopina in January slapped Kerik with a defamation suit claiming Kerik fed outrageous “lies” about him to the Daily News for a December “hit piece.” The Daily News was also sued initially by Tacopina, but it was later removed as a defendant.
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.