Bernie Kerik

Battered by scandal, facing down a federal indictment that could put him behind bars, the onetime hero Won’tof September 11 tries to prove there are second acts in American life by joseph braude photographs by dana lixenberg I. The Pit for homeland security chief, a equally important to Kerik, who sees it as It is called Al-Hafr—the Dig—this giant pit that confi dant, and a true hero of September 11, whose the centerpiece of his comeback. stretches a quarter mile across and seven stories fall from grace is one of the most astonishing The project is top secret, though it has deep into the reddish Arabian soil. A steep, jagged political tales of the age of terrorism. to be one of the noisiest, most glaring road cut into the side of the crater provides access “I’m pouring my heart and soul into this,” national-security secrets in the Arab world. for a procession of trucks and turbaned laborers Kerik shouts over the roar of the construction. ’s security establishment has effectively who work long hours seven days a week to deepen “Everything I got.” Al-Hafr, II’ve’ve alreadyalready barred local journalists from reporting on and enlarge the hole. I am here on a pleasant, learned, is the fi rst stage in the construction the excavation and will not allow me to reveal wind-whipped March afternoon in the desert of a high-security crisis-management its location. The men driving tractors and kingdom of Jordan with Bernard Kerik—former headquarters commissioned by Jordan’s earthmovers at the base of the pit—Tonka police commissioner of the City of New York, royal family. As integral as this project is to miniatures viewed from ground level—know President George W. Bush’s onetime nominee the future of the Hashemite Kingdom, it is little about the nature of their work. Even a

HIS KINGDOM COME Bernard Kerik, photographed in Amman, Jordan, May 2007 108 B E S T L I F E J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 7 Fold tion for secretary of the Department of Home- legal situation. To understand his current troubles, emotions, fi nances, family, and your life.…Now land Security, facing a fusillade of scandals that go to 2005, when the City of New York is the darkest time in my life, and nothing I have would have crushed a less resilient soul. For those began to look into his connections to a company been through has gotten me ready for it.…I am who don’t recall the ugly details, Kerik’s vetting called Interstate Industrial Corporation, which truly f--kin’ afraid.” process brought forth a lifetime of bad judgment employed his brother and his best friend. City calls: associations with sketchy, possibly investigators charged that Kerik accepted free II. The Haunting Mafi a types; two fl agrant adulterous affairs; services from Interstate, while recommending Veteran police offi cers speak of fear as an erratic bankruptcy; and insider business deals that the fi rm for municipal contracts—an ethics companion. Often it is missing during the most reeked of opportunism at best and possibly graft. violation compounded by the company’s reputed threatening moments of their lives, moving in A “multi platformed fl ameout,” wrote The New underworld ties. After a year of wrangling, he only when the danger has passed. Kerik worked Yorker. ““Disgraceful,”Disgraceful,” wrotewrote . pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in a Bronx the most dangerous years of his career as a “When they write something positive about County courthouse: accepting $165,000 in plainclothes narcotics detective, often working you,” says Kerik, “the story doesn’t last very long. renovations, as well as failing to report a personal undercover in the Bronx. There, on a chilly But when they write something negative, it stays loan of $29,000 for the down payment on his November morning in 1991, a 35-year-old Kerik, with you forever.” apartment. He believed this would put an end to it. wearing fi ve diamond earrings and a gold hoop To Kerik’s great good fortune, King Abdullah He was wrong. Federal attorneys launched a under his long, shaggy mane, saved his partner, hasn’t fl inched. He has grander plans for the second investigation, apparently based on his Hector Santiago, from certain death by an act of commissioner’s talents. He has hired Kerik to guilty plea—he allegedly did not pay income bravery that bears repeating. collaborate on the design of his underground, tax on the value of the free renovations—and Kerik, Santiago, and several other cops had seismic-shock-proof, oxygen-stowing compound explored two new charges: providing false cornered a drug dealer they had been chasing that could withstand a nuclear attack. The information to the FBI during his homeland through an Upper Manhattan neighborhood. bunker would be linked to sensitive installations vetting and conspiring to commit illegal Trapped, the dealer got out of his car ready for a in each of the kingdom’s provinces, enabling wiretapping, based on conversations he had with showdown. In one hand was a bag holding centralized command and control even if chaos Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who fi ve kilos of cocaine; in the other was a Sig Sauer reigned above on the kingdom’s sands. Inside its was trying to catch her husband cheating. “The 9mm semiautomatic pistol. secure walls, the leaders of Jordan could draw investigation might appear to be a mile wide, but “He raised the gun and began fi ring,” recalls up contingency plans to manage megaterrorism, it is an inch deep,” Kerik’s defense attorney Ken Kerik, “as calmly as if he were asking directions.” civil war, and other disasters that could befall Breen told me. “Bernie Kerik has already copped A bullet shattered the windshield of Santiago’s a modern monarchy. It is a massive project, the to the inch deep in the Bronx.” car and struck him in the arm. The detective fi rst of its kind in the Arab world. In Arabia, Kerik needs no defense. “This slumped through the open driver’s-side door and “Jordan is the linchpin of American hopes for man is a hero,” says Brigadier General Reda Al crawled under the car. The drug dealer proceeded peace in the Middle East,” says Kerik, “and this Btoush, the ranking Jordanian offi cial who now in Santiago’s direction to fi nish him off. Kerik, “Thank you, Commissioner Bernie!” a trainee THE TEACHER Addressing a classroom of training offi cers at the Public Security stammers. His swollen eyelids block his vision, Directorate’s Royal Police Academy in Amman, Jordan and his skin is a painful-looking shade of crimson. four-star general in the country’s military intel- forging ahead, keeping his counsel, and fi ghting Trade Center crashed down around them, the hole is going to be the foundation of one of the collaborates with Kerik on building the crisis- sitting in another car, watched in disbelief. He ligence can provide only hints about its purpose his nighttime fears. man who escorted the president through Ground most substantial tools the king has to combat management center. “Some very important recalls thinking, Shit, is this guy crazy? when questioned by uniformed colleagues. At the Four Seasons, Kerik takes his morning Zero, the New York Police Department’s top terror for the next 20 to 25 years.” As large as the people in my country are entrusting him with In the horrifi c scene that followed, Kerik does In a softly lit corner of Amman’s Four Seasons macchiatos with Sweet’N Low, one shot cop who projected to the world an aura of steely project is, the crisis center is not the full extent their lives and the security of the kingdom. not recall feeling fear. He emerged from his own Hotel lobby, the mastermind of this project following the next, sometimes a bit sweaty authority in the days after September 11. of Kerik’s purview here. Based on his undisputed Myself, I trust him like a brother.” car to meet the gunman head-on. Kerik remained harbors his own secret. Just a few days before, on after lifting weights upstairs in the gym. In Kerik greets his well-wishers with genuine success as commissioner of New York City’s King Abdullah has nothing but praise for calm, a tribute to training, temperament, and a February 28, 2007, Bernard Kerik made a fateful the afternoon, it’s sirloin with french fries, warmth, in a gravel-throated New York accent, prisons, Kerik has been entrusted to overhaul Kerik: “We’re struggling to make our prisons grim sense of duty. He fi red his service revolver decision: He turned down a plea bargain from interrupted by a respectful parade of visitors F-words fl ying. But some of these visitors Jordan’s prison system and design a “supermax” tighter and more effectively guarded, while also into the man’s rib cage as he walked toward the Attorney’s Offi ce in White from the Middle East and elsewhere. want to talk business, knowing Kerik’s can-do facility to incarcerate hard-core Al-Qaeda improving on our past record in terms of compli- him. His target returned fi re several times and Plains, New York, which was investigating him “Thanks for what you did on 9/11, Commish,” reputation and royal connections, and on these detainees. Then there is the unmanned spy-plane ance with minimal human-rights standards,” he fl ed. Kerik gave pursuit amid fl ying bullets. No on matters of income-tax fraud. Because he did says an executive from the New York area, occasions he turns his shaved head slightly away project he’s overseeing. For Kerik, these projects says. “When we win credit from international blood, Kerik remembered later, and barely any not cut a deal—which would have mandated jail extending his hand. “As-SalamuAs-Salamu ‘‘AlaykumAlaykum, and the conversation goes sotto voce. There are are “less like a job and more like a mission. If monitors for having achieved these goals, it’s adrenaline. A passing patrol car emptied onto time—he was told he faces possible indictments Bernie,” says a Jordanian guest at the hotel, deals in the air and many conversations at this I never got to serve on top of homeland, I still going to be a tribute to Bernie Kerik.” the street, and uniformed cops rallied behind on a variety of charges that could bring down intoning the Muslim greeting of peace that table that cannot be repeated. The Four Seasons want to contribute some other way, and these Far from home, Kerik has been welcomed as a Kerik, who then chased the man down. When his new career and send him to prison. It could Kerik has grown accustomed to hearing. Groups lobby is the scene of back-channel diplomacy of projects are a big part of that.” fl awed hero, his value to the kingdom not defi ned the shooting stopped, a trail of 58 spent metal also damage the presidential campaign of his of tourists seek his autograph, and he obliges the highest levels, and Kerik is proud that he is In Jordan, Kerik works long hours knowing his by his past failings but by his endurance and his cartridges zigzagged through the housing close friend Rudy Giuliani. Now, while his every one. To these admirers, he is Bernie Kerik sometimes at the center of it. reputation is still in free fall back home, wondering strength. “At least here in Jordan, I stand half a projects, down to the alley where the gunman attorneys in the United States work to forestall the Commissioner, the man who shielded then- King Abdullah II brought Kerik to Jordan in if these major security projects will still be his chance,” he says at the pit, as if to himself. “Back fi nally fell with two bullets in his right leg, two in the indictments, Kerik carries on in Jordan, mayor Giuliani as the South Tower of the World 2005, after the hero cop withdrew his nomina- when the royal family grasps the gravity of his home, it’s death by a thousand cuts—cuts to your his back, and one buried in his ribs. ››

110 BEST LIFE JULY/AUGUST 2007 BestLifeOnline.com 111 the private sector. Kerik went on to accept f--kin’ fi ne, give ’em their pound of fl esh, whatever feelings are completely new to me.” Kerik has a six-month stint as ’s interim minister the f--k they want. There’s a point where you just an estranged daughter by his fi rst wife, a Korean of interior under the Baghdad occupation lose the ability to fi ght.” woman, and a son from his second marriage, to administration of L. III. In Kerik’s father, with whom he had been close, a Cuban woman. His complicated family life is December 2004, he received word that was at the end of a yearlong battle with cancer. “like a little ,” he says. “Now I President Bush wanted to nominate him to “No matter how much you’re prepared for your got a couple of little Syrians running around the serve as the nation’s most powerful enforcer, pop’s passing,” says Kerik, “when it happens, it’s house.” The cuddling goes on for a few minutes, secretary of homeland security. DUBYA’S TOP like somebody rips your f--kin’ heart out.” So the and then the girls are off. COP, crowed the New York Post. BERNIE’S BEEN commissioner moved to end his legal woes in June Kerik won’t answer questions about the W’S GO-TO GUY SINCE SEPT. 11, added the Daily 2006, accepting as punishment two misdemeanor impact of his extramarital affairs on his family News. Here was a bullet-dodging, bootstrapping convictions and $221,000 in fi nes. Whatever (“Don’t wanna go there,” he says), but here in American success story that would have made sense of relief Kerik enjoyed at the resolution of his den he takes me through the fi rst dark days a great book, and sure enough, Kerik had a his legal battle, it lasted only a few days. It was after his homeland security withdrawal. He quit contract to write one. Kerik had initially within a week that he learned federal prosecutors to protect his friend, and he demurred at Bush’s invitation, but a deft were looking into pressing felony charges based hunkered down in . The phone began White House headhunter played to his ego, on some of the same evidence to which he had ringing. The fi rst to call was disgraced New he says, persuading him to begin the vetting pleaded guilty. Ever since, Kerik and his family York Stock Exchange ex-chief Dick Grasso, who SUPERMAX IN PROGRESS Kerik’s “pride and joy” will house the worst Al-Qaeda offenders in Jordan. It is expected to be completed in September 2007. process. The president, Kerik recalls, gave him have been living with intense public shame and a offered his home in the Hamptons to the Kerik a simple mandate: “He told me to go in there foreboding of troubles ahead. clan as a place of refuge. (“He told me to think “It wasn’t until he was down and I took a and most grandly budgeted city police force in a private enforcer, policing the personal lives and ‘break some china.’ ” “My wife is a wreck,” he says. “And anytime of all the good things I did during my 30 years good look that I truly comprehended the bullets the world. Along the way, Kerik spent three of women with whom the prince had been Just help us answer a few questions, Commissioner. there’s stress like this, whether you intend to or of service,” recalls Kerik.) Former New Jersey whizzing all around me,” says Kerik. “There were years as deputy commissioner of corrections and romantically involved. Kerik waves away the And so began one of the steepest falls in not, you take it out on each other—husband and governor Jim McGreevey, who resigned after bullet holes in the trees, the car, the buildings. three years as commissioner in the late 1990s, veracity of this claim, calling it “bullshit.” recent American history. “From the highest wife—and you take it out on your kids. There publicly admitting he was a closeted homosexual, You say, ‘Shit, that was close,’ and you break out during which time he presided over a more than Giuliani bonded with the ambitious cop, hiring mountain,” in the words of an ancient are times I’m so f--kin’ depressed, I don’t want also phoned in a pep talk. (“I didn’t know him in a sweat. You go home at night and retrace what 90 percent decline in inmate violence within Kerik to serve him as driver and bodyguard Babylonian lament, “to the deepest pit.” Or as to work. I don’t want to get out of bed. You go to that well, but he called me up and basically said, happened in your mind, and that’s when it gets the the Rikers Island prison complex. “This was a during his 1992 election campaign. They thought Rebecca Mead described it in The New Yorker, sleep, you wake up in a f--kin’ sweat. Sometimes ‘Look, you have a huge following in Jersey.’ ”) most severe. That’s when you get scared.” hellhole,” says Kerik, “that nobody was ever able alike, and they hugged and kissed and cried a “complete obliteration of his reputation.” A I take one thing to put me to sleep and another And former Canadian prime minister Brian In 30 years of law enforcement, he says, this to handle.” And though it is clearly a boast, it freely—and each man says he has watched The week after Kerik withdrew his nomination, a thing to keep me awake. It’s like being haunted.” Mulroney, who left offi ce as one of the least was the only type of fear he really knew. appears to be accurate. He was widely credited Godfather 5500 times.times. TheThe mmayorayor paidpaid hishis driverdriver Mafi a informant alleged that Kerik had Mob popular PMs in Canada’s history, called to offer for having tamed Rikers with muscle, charismatic back for his loyalty by making him New York’s ties. Sacked employees of the Saudi hospital III. The League of the benefi t of his own seasoned perspective. asas CCommissionerommissioner Kerik’sKerik’s leadership, and electronic “stun” technology (for 40th police commissioner in August 2000, in that Kerik had policed in the ’80s told Disgraced Gentlemen “You look at the people who called me to show brilliantbrilliant ccareer,areer, iinn tthehe which he was later rewarded with a seat on the the fi nal year of Giuliani’s second term. Local journalists he had been a “gestapo”-like “goon,” A German shepherd named Duke patrols Kerik’s their support,” he observes, “and all of them, parlanceparlance ooff TVTV ccopop shows,shows, board of Taser Corporation). An adoring press media, for the most part, credited the Kerik cracking down on drinking and dating on two-acre homestead in Franklin Lakes, New or most of them, are people who get it, who oneone man’sman’s rrelentlesselentless searchsearch stoked rumors of his imminent promotion to appointment as a reasonable choice to steward orders from a sex-starved prince. Others Jersey. In the middle is a 7,500-square-foot understand, who have been through it.” forfor justice?justice? OrOr isis itit betterbetter seenseen police commissioner nearly a year before then- the police through a lame-duck administration. charged that Kerik had sex with publisher suburban mansion, which he had built “mostly Kerik’s Arab contacts proved sympathetic Win psychological terms, as an attempt to redress mayor Giuliani announced the decision. But Kerik acted nothing like a lame duck. In Judith Regan at a Ground Zero safe house from the ground up” after tearing down the to his predicament as well. First to call was a childhood injury? Either way, all roads lead Kerik was a stalwart of the Giuliani the ensuing months, he made sweeping changes meant for rescue workers, and then dispatched bilevel that came with the $1.2 million property. Egyptian- British tycoon Mohamed Al back to Newark, New Jersey, where Kerik was administration, commonly derided by its in the command structure of the NYPD, in the a homicide detective to search for her cell This is Kerik’s refuge, one of the major perks of Fayed, whose son Dodi had died alongside born on September 4, 1955. Kerik’s mother was critics as insular, authoritarian, clannish—in process making plenty of enemies. phone. Within weeks, the hero who could do his success, the home he shares with his Syrian- Princess Diana in the famous 1997 Paris car a prostitute, and she abandoned him as a child. a word, tribal. Loyalty was prized. Power was September 11, 2001, hoisted Giuliani and no wrong seemed to have morphed once more, born wife, Hala, and their two young daughters. crash. “He said he wanted to see me in London,” She turned tricks for booze and cash until she understood and deployed—not always with Kerik to mythic status. Stranded in a cloud of this time into a villain who could do no right. “Stay!” commands Kerik, grabbing the dog recalls Kerik, “to talk about his security issues. was murdered, apparently by her pimp. Kerik consensus. The mayor’s inner circle, many black fumes and swirling dust amid the fall of Within months, the strongest claims against in one arm and waving me in with the other. So I got on a plane and fl ew to London, and lived with his father’s new family, and as might charged, played by its own rules and guarded the South Tower, Commissioner Kerik emerged him found their way into a grand jury room in The smell of coffee brewing comes from the when I got there, I realized it was more about be expected, he got off to a troubled start in life. its fl anks. As Kerik’s rise continued, nobody in as controlled and steely-eyed as he was in the Bronx, and Commissioner Kerik became kitchen, but we head off to his den, a sumptuous Dodi and Princess Diana. He wanted me to He cut classes and eventually dropped out of high city hall seemed to notice a pattern of improper that gunfi ght. His calm, authoritative voice— a criminal defendant. home offi ce with an oversize mahogany desk get involved in the investigation and what he school. He joined the military police in Korea, conduct in his career. Sporadic, sure, but it beamed around the world in televised press “The facts speak for themselves,” says and a lifetime of awards and photographs on believed was a cover-up by the British and U.S. guarded a hospital complex in on had been there from the beginning. In 1976, conferences with Giuliani—seemed to embody Village Voice investigative reporter Wayne display—group smiles from uniformed men, governments of intelligence information that behalf of a local prince, and put in time in New he had accepted a demotion in Korea from the resilience Americans aspired to in the face Barrett, coauthor of a book on the Giuliani framed snapshots of Kerik with Giuliani, he alleged they had about his son’s death. He Jersey as a corrections offi cer before he arrived at corporal to private fi rst class rather than face of this aggression. Events had transformed a administration. “It’s a set of facts that diminishes Bush, Mother Theresa, Paul Wolfowitz, Queen wanted me to be a part of this. He sort of wanted the NYPD in 1986. As a New York City narcotics a court-martial for breaking a soldier’s middle onetime serial truant and high school dropout the guy to a petty thief.” Elizabeth, and Oprah. me to lead this investigation for him.” detective in the 1980s and ’90s, he traveled fi nger. His post-Army stint in Saudi Arabia as into a national icon. He bonded with President Kerik, for his part, declines to refute the Hala appears with coffee and cookies on a Kerik doesn’t say it exactly, but his tone of undercover in South America, seizing millions of security chief for a hospital complex ended in Bush and shared tears with Cardinal Edward specifi c evidence against him on the advice of tray. Kerik registers a small complaint about the voice reveals that after a job offer from the dollars in cocaine from the drug lords of the Cali his expulsion from the kingdom in 1984, after Egan at a Mass for martyrs and fallen heroes at his attorneys, but he claims, despite his guilty cookie tray, which threatens his diet. president to supervise the U.S. Department of cartel. Kerik was awarded 100 citations, including he fought with a Saudi secret-police offi cial who New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. pleas, that the Bronx trial distorted evidence and “It’s for the guest,” she says. Homeland Security, Al Fayed’s overture felt the Medal of Valor and commendations from the was trying to interrogate him. Kerik attributes When Giuliani’s term was over, the mayor smeared him as part of a broader campaign to tar Their daughters, Celine, 7, and Angelina, 4, a bit, well, defl ating. “I listened to him,” says Drug Enforcement Administration and one of his his travails to a power struggle among rival and the commissioner went into business Giuliani. “By the time I entered the guilty pleas,” come in for after-school hugs. “They kill me,” Kerik, “and I said, ‘You know, I wish you luck,’ heroes, President Ronald Reagan. princes, one of whom had been his . But together. Giuliani-Kerik Partners scored says Kerik, “I just f--kin’ wanted it to be over. I says Kerik, lifting his older daughter’s auburn but I wasn’t interested. My personal opinion is From detective third grade (the lowest grade), the allegation later surfaced that in serving millions of dollars in lucrative security- didn’t take the pleas because I really thought hair to fi nd a kissing spot on her forehead. I think he believed I was angry at Bush and the he ascended in short order to running the largest his employer so loyally, he acted in effect as consulting contracts with governments and I had done anything wrong. It was just, Pay the “It’s totally different from having a son. These U.S. government, so I would be one to come out

112 BEST LIFE JULY/AUGUST 2007 BestLifeOnline.com 113 KERIK IN EXILE “Back swinging and attack them on these intelligence forward to settle into the fi rst-class cabin. “We will live out their days in isolation “so they don’t home, it’s death by a issues. Not gonna happen.” won’t be talkin’ on the fl ight much anyway,” Kerik inspire any lesser criminals to join them in a thousand cuts,” he says. “At least here in Jordan Later came a message from the son of Libyan tells me. “Something about this fl ight—it’s the terrorist campaign,” says Kerik. Contrary to a I stand half a chance.” dictator Muammar Qaddafi , by way of a personal only time I ever get a f--kin’ good night’s sleep.” press report last year, this new compound is not emissary. Libya was interested in building up the CIA’s local Al-Qaeda “ghost prison”—which its tourist industry, but couldn’t seem to get IV. Thank You, Commissioner Bernie does exist, but is in fact a smaller installation, around the problem of old land mines blowing up Jordan’s prison system, about 9,000 inmates staffed by Americans, and located elsewhere in along its highways. Would Commissioner Kerik strong, has hosted its share of militant Islamist Jordan’s vast deserts. care to manage a countrywide minesweeping convicts who went on to become international A wiry, mustached warden-to-be greets Kerik operation and help train Libyan security forces terrorists, notably the slain chief of Al-Qaeda and three aides. “So let us show you where matters as a side project? in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The kingdom stand,” he volunteers in thickly accented English, “It could have been a substantial business,” has also faced repeated charges of human- and we begin moving through a long, dark corridor muses Kerik, “especially on the de-mining end. rights violations throughout its corrections of skeletal holding cells the size of walk-in closets, And I know Libya has been taken off the terrorist- facilities, as well as a prison riot in March past laundry and recreational areas, a large kitchen, watch list. But just on a personal level for me, that 2006, in which inmates took seven police and a mess hall with long cafeteria tables made of would be diffi cult, especially after September 11. hostages and commandeered a cell phone to shiny granite. Kerik pauses every few feet or so to On top of that, the public perception would be call for pan-Arab and pan-Islamic solidarity, run his hand over a sharp edge, scrutinize a wall insane. It would be, you know, crazy.” broadcast live on Al-Jazeera. socket, or simply lecture his clients. So the call from Jordan’s King Abdullah Copycat riots broke out within hours in two “What are you plugging into that hole in the asking for help on a few national security projects more prisons where inmates had been watching corner?” he asks the warden. Identical socketsRICKERBY/REUTERS BRAD MONSIVAIS/AP; MARTINEZ PABLO PHOTOS; areABBAS/MAGNUM SHOWCASE/NEWSCOM; LEVINE/PHOTOGRAPHER B. RICHARD GORMAN/AP; BESAW BRIDGET RIGHT) TOP FROM (CLOCKWISE suddenly seemed the perfect choice, as American the news on satellite TV. Clearly, there was a drilled into the top of the far right wall of each cell. as apple pie. “Everything His Majesty has been problem—and an opportunity asking me to do is totally in keeping with the for the right guy. Kerik won’t struggle for peace and against the evil forces reveal his group’s compensation that brought us September 11,” says Kerik. The scheme, “But we’re a hell of a lot king retained Kerik’s services even after his cheaper than f--kin’ McKinsey,” guilty pleas in a Bronx court in 2006 made him he says. He puts it to me that radioactive in the United States. “Never once did a “Big 5” consulting fi rm like he ask me about any of those issues.” McKinsey & Company would Kerik, a fallen hero of September 11, was probably outsource the sort now a hero in the Middle East. On closer of specialized work he does to inspection it makes sense. Just ask a host of other somebody else—if such a person scandal-tainted Americans—and American exists—and add on a hefty institutions—who also have found asylum in management fee. The notion

LIFE AT CENTER STAGE (clockwise from top right): Kerik and Giuliani at Ground Zero, September 12, 2001; the mayor and his top cop at New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in 2002; in Baghdad in the aftermath of a suicide bombing in 2003; campaigning with President Bush in 2004; with Giuliani and Governor George Pataki in New York in November 2001 visiting arrangements, phone calls, mail, and from the gangs of L.A. and Rikers and apply readying a frightful dose of Oleoresin Capsicum food. “You give ’em the basics and you get a much them in any Arab country,” he says.) Second, for each man—that’s airborne habanero pepper the outlying autocracies of the Pax Americana. of a “disgrace discount” on Kerik’s services “Television,” the guard replies. less violent system,” he explains. “The riots that corrections offi cers must be professionalized concentrate. We are about to see a hands-on Michael Jackson makes his new home in the pro- presumably wasn’t lost on Abdullah, who reigns “No way. Fill ’em all in. If somebody made it happened here last March, we’ve determined that as a unique cadre, with their own career demonstration, Rikers-style, of the deterrent American Arabian island of Bahrain, where he over a cash-strapped, oil-free kingdom. into supermax, he’s not gonna get such easy access a lack of basic essentials was the real stuff the incentives and distinctive skills. (“Police work effect of the pepper spray. enjoys the comfort of a complete state-sponsored We drive into the outlying desert of a central to information.” inmates were rallying around. You give ’em the and the care of inmates are two very different “I wanna say you are all very lucky to have paparazzi blackout as well as the friendship of the Jordanian province, past a strip of body shops, a Kerik sees potential weapons at every turn. minimum standards and they won’t be able to rally careers with very different mandates, skills, and His Majesty King Abdullah as your leader,” royal family. Halliburton, the much-maligned vast military installation, and a rundown mosque. The meat hooks in the kitchen? “Get ’em around negativity. It’s all preventable.” requirements,” he writes in a prisons-assessment Kerik tells the mustached trainees, who are American corporation, recently moved its It is a drab moonscape of parched rocky gray outta here!” He’s no fan of the granite dining After watching him for more than a week, it report.) Finally, the twin requirements for beginning to look a little nervous. “He is headquarters to the gray market haven of Dubai, desert, broken only by fl ocks of herded sheep. tables either: “I could just jump on the edge seems to me that Kerik basks in these training reducing human-rights abuse in a prison are to absolutely committed to getting you the latest another pro-American Arab state. There are fi ve of us in the Land Cruiser, listening of this table and break off the rock that kills sessions, the walking tours of sites under grant inmates their basic human needs and to equipment and the best training and to In March, I tag along with Kerik to see him at to up-tempo patriotic anthems at high volume. In you!” he shouts. In the cafeteria, he asks for an construction, and the presentations to four- wield overwhelming, nonlethal force as a advancing your careers in the PSD [Public work. When we meet at Kennedy Airport for the the closing distance, I spy a sprawling compound overhanging metal slab to be installed to hide star generals of assessment reports generated deterrent to potentially lethal violence. Security Directorate], and I’m committed to night fl ight to Amman, he warns me to keep my with black steel gates and a looming watchtower. the faces of the serving staff—“No dirty looks, by his group. He elaborates three simple, basic At an outdoor training session later in the fi nding out what you need and what you need laptop and camera on the plane. “F--kin’ thieves,” “My pride and joy,” proclaims Kerik. no nasty ideas.” A cocoon of razor wire is to be ideas, all of which trace back to his experience day, Kerik delivers a low-key pep talk (through to learn and making sure His Majesty knows he mutters. “Even pepper spray isn’t safe in a It’s the new supermax prison, being designed mounted around the entire facility. on Rikers Island: First, the criminal mind is a translator) to 20 or so young men who are so you will get it.” suitcase anymore.” At the mouth of the plane, to Kerik’s specifi cations. Here in this remote Shifting gears, he turns to his audience and universal—race, creed, and country of origin corrections cadets. At the same time, two of his Then the moment of truth arrives. One by we split up. Kerik and his security team move location, the kingdom’s worst violent offenders gives an impromptu lesson on the questions of notwithstanding. (“You can take lessons aides, Frank Ciaccio and Jimmy Grillo, stand by one, the cadets line up in front of Grillo, who Continued on page 128

114 BEST LIFE JULY/AUGUST 2007 BestLifeOnline.com 115 BERNIE KERIK WON’T FOLD Continued from page 115 softly, in precise and measured sentences. I ask Kerik back into the aims a silver gas-powered gun at each man’s face him directly about his affi nity—and his kingdom’s crime-fi ghting arena and lets him have a two-second blast of the need—for a man like Kerik. closer to home. Excited pepper spray. “We got to a point of crisis in Jordan,” he says, at the prospect, he says “Uffff!” exclaims the fi rst victim, doubling over, “and here is a man who showed extraordinary he might even begin his reddening face awash in phlegm and tears. leadership in the greatest crisis New York City to wield a new kind Each man steps up, trying to remain stoic as ever faced, with years of experience managing of infl uence with the Grillo points the gun at his face. Some close their prisons, from whom we can learn. There was an U.S. Department of eyes and manage to keep silent; others walk off in initial friendship that grew out of the period he Homeland Security, obvious agony to the training ground’s edge and was in Iraq. One project has grown into another, albeit through the vomit by the curb, where gaping colleagues pour from our prison and corrections concerns to our back door. “What bottled water over their eyes. emergency crisis-management issues.” I have in mind is to “You learn you had phlegm in you that you When I ask him to talk about Kerik’s past legal connect Guyana with didn’t know you had,” Ciaccio explains later, with troubles, the king declines politely. So I ask for the [American] DEA,” a slight chuckle. The premise of the exercise, he his take on Kerik’s character. “What I look for in Kerik tells me in says, is that a corrections offi cer will gain full an advisor is someone who will not feel awkward Amman, “possibly get confi dence in the spray’s deterrent capability only telling me what he thinks,” he says. “NothingNothing some funding for them after he suffers its effects himself. “Your prisoner makes that man feel awkward.” from the U.S. and other can smell your fear,” says Ciaccio. “He will know Back home, Rudy Giuliani, now the front- countries to stop the when you’re afraid and when you’re not. We take running Republican candidate for president, has drug fl ow—kind of a our guys through this, and we make them been keeping Kerik at a distance. In interviews holistic program.” understand what they can do.” In Ciaccio’s this spring, Giuliani called his recommendation In the Middle East, experience, prison guards are less likely to employ of Kerik for homeland security a “mistake.” Kuwait’s government gratuitous violence if they have been trained to Asked about his ex-partner’s fast-track has solicited two conquer their own fears of the inmate population. promotions as a member of the mayor’s inner proposals from the KEEPING HIS DISTANCE Of Giuliani, Kerik says, “It’s like “Thank you, Commissioner Bernie!” a trainee circle, the candidate fell short of defending Kerik Group for dying a slow death, watching him answer for my mistakes.” stammers. The man can hardly see. His swollen Kerik’s record, allowing only that he should homeland security eyelids block his vision, and his skin has turned a have vetted him more carefully. A Giuliani projects there. “Another painful-looking shade of crimson. spokesman declined comment for this article. thing about this hole we’re digging,” says Kerik. in the region. “Bernie understands the nature of “Hey, thank you,” replies Kerik. “Be good.” The So did Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliott Jacobson, “When we’re done with it and we’ve built the Arabs and speaks to them in their mentality,” Land Cruiser arrives to pick us up and stirs up a reportedly a prime mover in the ongoing federal the thing in two years, 10 other countries are says retired Jordanian lieutenant general Ghazi cloud of capsicum. Though Kerik has kept far investigation and potential prosecution of Kerik. gonna want one just like it.” The Al Maktoum Musa al-Tayyib, who heads a counterterrorism enough away from the initial airborne barrage, as “I accept the distance created by Giuliani,” family that rules in Dubai has hosted Kerik institute in Amman, where Kerik has lectured he enters the car his expression sags and he looks Kerik writes me one morning in an e-mail. “And for a weekend, thanks to an introduction by security offi cials from more than a dozen Arab disturbed. I ask what’s wrong. I understand it, but inside it’s killing me. It’s like the Jordanian royals, who are related to the countries. “He understands our nature, and we “It’s the shit back home,” he sighs. “You can dying a slow death, watching him have to answer Al Maktoum family by marriage. Kerik is appreciate his character.” only get it off your mind so long, and when it gets for my mistakes.” fi elding requests from senior Iraqi offi cials to He is also known to do his homework. back in, it f--ks with you.” Kerik stays up at night sifting the possibilities. broker the payment of millions of dollars in At an afternoon meeting, he joins Brigadier “Say hello to His Majesty for us!” the puffy- If his past mistakes could cause a complete break grant aid from Saudi Arabia and the United General Al Btoush, Jordan’s top military man faced trainee cries, his voice trailing behind. with Giuliani, the godfather to his two little girls Arab Emirates to Baghdad’s interior ministry. on the crisis-center project, and retired U.S. and his close friend of 15 years, then what will The funds would back an automated national brigadier general Kenneth Bergquist, formerly V. Bernie in Exile new federal indictments do to his lifeline here in identifi cation system and new border control an assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy. Kerik “The thing about going through hell,” says Kerik, Jordan? Late one night over coffee in the lobby of measures, seen as components of the struggle talks through a list of personnel changes he “is that some of the people you thought would be the hotel in Amman, I ask Kerik what he will do against jihadists in Iraq. wants to make to the Jordanian prison staff. He standing by your side, they vanish, and other guys if he loses the confi dence of the king. He waves Kerik is even becoming a trusted back- confi dently cites each offi cial’s tribal affi liations turn out to be the best friends you ever had.” Of away the very thought of it. “I have to just try to channel diplomat in the region. An Orthodox and loyalties within the army and intelligence King Abdullah and his younger brother Prince put it out of my mind,” he says. priest, traveling overland from Damascus to apparatus—and Al Btoush nods his acquiescence Ali, he says: “These guys are like brothers to me Amman, dropped in on Kerik at the Four each time. It feels as if the only foreigner in the now.” In fact, Kerik appears to have transferred uring our week in Amman, Kerik Seasons, carrying direct orders from President room is Bergquist; the Jordanian’s body language to Jordan’s monarchy the bulldog loyalty that lets me know that things are look- Bashar Al-Assad, of Syria. The message: Would and hand gestures seem interchangeable with famously marked his long friendship with ing up for his business in other Kerik kindly intervene with President Bush the NYPD commissioner’s. Al Btoush lobbies Giuliani. And they, in turn, have gone out of their parts of the world. A few weeks to consider a high-level dialogue on matters Kerik to raise a few matters with the king when way to signal their trust in him. before, a politician in Trinidad and related to terrorism and Iraq? The priest then they breakfast together over the weekend; Kerik I meet King Abdullah in the young monarch’s DTobago, a crime-ridden Caribbean democracy, provided specifi c information about Assad’s promises to advocate on the general’s behalf. private suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Wash- petitioned the Kerik Group to direct a local citi- forthcoming travel plans to Switzerland and The meeting ends. ington D.C., a few days before his March address zens’ commission on crime. Not to be outdone, the Spain, offering invitations to meet at the U.S. The secretive nature of the region’s governing to a joint session of Congress. He is a polite and president of the Republic of Guyana, where illegal embassy of either country. style allows insiders like Kerik to negotiate affable man of 45, the oldest son of the late King drug traffi cking amounts to the equivalent of Kerik took the overture to Deputy National sweeping decisions with rulers, potentially

Hussein, who was America’s staunchest Arab PERICH PASCAL 20 percent of gross domestic product, announced Security Advisor Elliott Abrams (this was nearly affecting millions of people, without the bruising ally in the Middle East for decades. He’s dressed that he wants to hire the ex-commissioner to lead a year after Kerik’s homeland security debacle). public debate over his past that appears par for in jeans, a loose-fi tting sweatshirt, and loafers. an overhaul of the country’s police system. The meeting with Assad never took place, but the course in a democracy. “It’s a cultural thing

Educated in Great Britain, Abdullah speaks DANA LIXENBERG These projects hold the promise of vaulting this did nothing to tarnish Kerik’s reputation that goes beyond a simple media blackout,”

128 BEST LIFE JULY/AUGUST 2007 BestLifeOnline.com 129 BERNIE KERIK WON’T FOLD Continued from page 129 observes Sameer Baitamooni, a well-connected “They start saying ‘If Kerik’s not going to be travel agent who frequents the Four Seasons there [in Trinidad], why should he be here?’ ” In Hotel. “When a man is on a mission for the April, Kerik fell on his sword and backed down king, in this region that’s a private mission. from both commitments. People understand that they should not be The big question now for Kerik, the one on asking questions.” which his future fully depends, is the Jordan assignment. Damage control—a principle Kerik he Caribbean nations have no kings. knows well from his Giuliani days—sometimes They are thriving messy democra- obliges a loyalist to bow out to protect his boss. cies where authority is routinely And no boss is impervious to popular pressures. questioned. In Trinidad, Kerik’s In an interdependent world, even monarchs may initiative quickly draws fi re in the be swayed by government actions and public Tmedia. In Guyana, President Bharrat Jagdeo’s opinion in distant lands, particularly an Arabian critics scorn the decision for entrusting national king without oil, whose rule is never certain and security to a foreigner with a criminal record. whose country depends on U.S. aid. The deals have gone through for the moment, but there is a new sense of the ground shifting. t hhomeome inin FFranklinranklin LLakes,akes, KKerikerik And then on March 14, to Kerik’s horror, the tapstaps outout anan ee-mail-mail ttoo PPrincerince AAli,li, tthehe story breaks on New York’s NewsChannel 4 that king’sking’s yyoungerounger bbrother.rother. IItt iiss eearlyarly his long-anticipated federal indictment may be inin tthehe aafternoonfternoon ofof AprilApril 7,7, andand imminent. Prosecutors apparently leaked the KerikKerik hhasas bbeeneen mmullingulling ooverver tthehe news that Kerik and his attorneys had rejected wordingA of this message for weeks. In his den, their offer of a felony plea deal. “When plea he is surrounded by photographs of bosses past negotiations fail,” a New York Times story points and a boss who might have been—this one taken out the same day, “federal prosecutors nearly at New York’s Gracie Mansion, that one in the always seek an indictment.” A Washington Post Oval Offi ce—each image offering a public story follow-up two weeks later predicts that the of achievement ending in disgrace brought about indictment “could set the stage for a courtroom by Kerik’s own failings. Seated at his computer, battle that would draw attention to Kerik’s he composes a short letter formally apprising extensive business and political dealings the royal family of the implications of his legal with…Giuliani.” diffi culties. He offers his full cooperation in The implications of the news will hardly mitigating any fallout to them. It’s the sort be lost on Kerik’s clients—and prospective of blank check he has offered in the past to clients—in the developing world. A federal Giuliani, to Bush, to offi cials in Trinidad and court battle would inspire heightened public Guyana—only to see it cashed each time. scrutiny of all Kerik’s endeavors, including his Prince Ali usually replies within a couple security work for foreign regimes. In the event of days to e-mails from his friend in Franklin of his conviction, leaders who had consulted him Lakes. On the night of April 7, however, Kerik on crime-fi ghting and prison reform would be telephones to tell me that the response came vulnerable to the charge that their consultant back to him in 30 minutes. was a convict. One terrible possibility: Kerik As Kerik reads—he has asked me not to quote is arraigned and the terms of his bail prevent the prince directly—he stumbles over the fi rst him from leaving the United States. The worst few words, and I hear a deep breath and a muffl ed case: He stands trial and loses, and the ensuing thud as the phone drops. In the background, I sentence puts him behind bars for years. can faintly hear him breaking down in tears. The morning the story broke, Kerik sent me He picks up the phone again. “I need a an e-mail at 8:36 A.M. He was back in the United minute,” he says. By my watch it takes him two States, and I phoned him at home. “It’s killing and a half minutes to regain his composure. The me,” he says sullenly. “The prosecutors know letter contains the news he has been hoping for. what they’re doing. They’re trying to destroy me The royal family, quite explicitly, assured Kerik one attack at a time.” that as long as he continues to do good things for In the days following, the bad news turns their country, their country will stand by him. worse. Both Caribbean democracies bow to More revealing than the rousing words of domestic pressure and bid Kerik farewell. “My support that follow is the cadence of Kerik’s client in Trinidad called me and said the media delivery as he reads them aloud. His voice halts attention based on sstorytory wwasas and stutters; he manages to catch and subdue a just overwhelming,” he recounts. “It’s creating sudden sob and go on momentarily, but then the all kinds of negativity. There are stories saying emotions behind the fear and calamity of the I’m gonna be arrested, like, tomorrow, so he past few months simply outrun his control, and said he doesn’t know if it’s a good idea that we the commissioner weeps and weeps for his self- continue.” Then Guyana starts to crumble. infl icted sorrows. ■

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