Bernard Bailey Kerik (4 September 1955-29 May 2025) was the Republican Police Commissioner of New York City from 21 August 2000 to 31 December 2001, succeeding Howard Safir and preceding Raymond Kelly.
Biography[]
Bernard Kerik was born in Newark, New Jersey to a Slovak-American father and an Irish-American mother, and he was raised in Paterson. He dropped out of high school in 1972 and served in the US Army from 1974 to 1977 before becoming a security expert in Saudi Arabia and a police officer in Passaic County and New York City. Kerik served as Rudy Giuliani's bodyguard and driver during his 1993 mayoral campaign, and he enjoyed a series of promotions with Giuliani's backing. Kerik served as Commissioner of the NYC Department of Correction from 1998 to 2000 and Police Commissioner from 2000 to 2001, and he achieved a natinoal profile due to the 9/11 attacks, which occurred three months before his retirement. Kerik went on to work for Giuliani's consulting firm until 2004, and he created his own consultancy firm in 2005 and served as its chairman until 2009. President George W. Bush appointed Kerik to serve as acting Interior Minister of Iraq following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, reinstating more than 35,000 Iraqi police, placing 35 police stations in Baghdad and many more around the country, and appointing senior deputy interior ministers, but he accepted a $250,000 interest-free "loan" from an Israeli businessman. This, and his hiring of an undocumented nanny and housekeeper, resulted in his withdrawal from President Bush's nomination to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security in 2004, and, on 30 June 2006, Kerik pled guilty to accepting the $250,000 bribe from the Israeli businessman, as well as another $236,000 from a New York real estate mogul. On 5 November 2009, he pled guilty to eight felony tax and false statement charges, and he was sentenced to 48 months in prison and 3 years of probation. He was imprisoned from 17 May 2010 to 15 October 2013, and his supervised release concluded in October 2016. Donald Trump pardoned Kerik on 18 February 2020, and Kerik attended Giuliani's post-election press conference at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company in Philadelphia in 2020 and made false claims of voter fraud. In August 2023, he was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.