Disgraced former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik lacks credibility and “has shown an utter lack of contrition” for crimes including lying to White House officials vetting him for the job of Homeland Security chief, federal prosecutors charged Monday.
Assistant US attorneys Perry Carbone and Elliot Jacobson’s damning remarks were made in legal papers asking Chief Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska to soundly reject Kerik’s plea for an early end to his post-jail supervised release.
The federal prosecutors ripped Kerik for backtracking under oath as a government witness in the 2012 Bronx perjury trial of contractors Frank and Peter DiTommaso. They accused the ex-top-cop during the trial of “disavowing” his 2006 guilty plea to state ethics violations of accepting $255,000 in free renovations for his Bronx apartment in exchange for greasing the wheels for his mobbed-up pals.
“The defendant has … shown an utter lack of contrition and rehabilitation by disavowing his guilty plea during the DiTommaso brothers’ trial,” the prosecutors wrote. “Such behavior should not be rewarded by early termination of his sentence.”
Kerik has only served a little over a year of his court-ordered three years of supervised release after catching a break in 2013 by being released roughly a year early on a four-year prison sentence.
The feds also claim Kerik is a bad risk at making good on $187,931 in restitution he was ordered to pay at sentencing, saying he’s so far made “just 13 payments of $250 each” totaling $3,250.
“Early termination of supervised release will make it that much more difficult to monitor the defendant’s compliance with his restitution obligations,” Carbone and Jacobson wrote.
Kerik’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said the prosecutors’ arguments “are not valid,” adding that “for them to say he hasn’t paid back enough supports our claim” that Kerik should be allowed to find full-time work.
Parlatore in filings last week described his client as a model prisoner who now dedicates part of his time to volunteering with law-enforcement recruits. He even suggested Kerik is being forced to turn down lucrative job offers right and left because of his situation — and that Kerik could help “countries overwhelmed” by ISIS.
“Early termination of his supervised release would allow him to travel freely abroad, throughout the Middle-East, specifically those countries overwhelmed by the threats of ISIS and other extremist groups, seeking advisory, training and consultant opportunities, as he has done in the past,” Parlatore wrote.