High-profile attorney Joe Tacopina has filed a $5 million defamation suit against Bernard Kerik, claiming the convicted felon and former NYPD commissioner fed “outrageous” lies to two New York reporters – and then tried to cover his tracks by filing an ethics complaint against the lawyer.
In papers filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court, Tacopina claims Kerik — whom he represented in criminal corruption cases in 2006 and 2007 – participated in an orchestrated “hit piece” about Tacopina, falsely claiming to the reporters that, among other things, Tacopina knowingly allowed Kerik to perjure himself in a 2006 Bronx guilty plea, and also gave privileged information about his then-client to the feds in 2007.
The defamation suit alleges that Daily News reporters Michael O’Keeffe and Nathaniel Vinton were “pursuing a crusade against Rodriguez” and – wanting to “undermine Tacopina’s reputation and credibility” – approached “admitted liar and cheat” Kerik for information and “found a willing partner” to help them “pull it off.”
“Kerik knowingly told O’Keeffe and Vinton lie after lie about Tacopina,” the suit claims.
Tacopina is not suing the reporters.
But the scribes, the lawsuit claims, “knew or should have known the internet-available docket from Kerik’s criminal case contains a formal decision from [a federal judge] unequivocally finding this allegation to be false.”
Tacopina represented shamed Yankee Alex Rodriguez in his recent failed bid to get his Major League Baseball doping ban overturned.
The suit alleges that the reporters exchanged calls and emails with Tacopina about Kerik’s claims in November and December, 2013, and were told the claims were false. Tacopina noted that if they were true, Kerik would have filed a bar complaint about the lawyer and “Tacopina surely would have been disciplined,” according to the suit. The scribes were also told that Kerik never mentioned any wrongdoing on Tacopina’s part when he later appealed his guilty plea in federal court.
“Miraculously,” the suit claims, a day after Tacopina brought up the lack of a bar complaint to the reporters, Kerik filed one against his onetime lawyer.
“Knowing that Kerik’s word alone would place them in jeopardy of libel,’’ the suit alleges that the reporters suggested Kerik file the paperwork, “thereby allowing them to repeat all of Kerik’s lies while seeking to shield themselves from a libel suit.”
According to the suit, when Tacopina’s lawyer, Judd Burstein, later questioned one of the writers about the legitimacy of the story, the reporter “disingenuously stated, ‘We merely reported about a bar complaint that Kerik filed.’”
Noting that “a claim that a criminal defense lawyer revealed privileged or confidential communications to a prosecutor is the most devastating claim that can be made by a client,” Tacopina is seeking $1 million in compensatory damages and $4 million in punitive damages.
Tacopina’s roster of clients has included Michael Jackson, Lilo Brancato and Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch man suspected in the Natalee Holloway disappearance.
O”Keeffe and Vinton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.