Bernard Kerik

Bernard Bailey Kerik (born September 4, 1955) is an American consultant and former police officer who was the 40th Commissioner of the New York Police Department from 2000 to 2001.

He attended Eastside High School in Paterson, and dropped out in 1972.

In July 1974, he enlisted in the United States Army and received a General Educational Development (GED) certificate from the State of North Carolina while assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

From December 1981 to October 1982 and then July 1984 to July 1986, Kerik worked at the Passaic County sheriff's office, in New Jersey.

He served as the department's training officer and commander of special weapons and operations, and ultimately chief and warden of the Passaic County jail.

Kerik worked from 1982 to 1984 as chief of investigations for the security division of the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Six members of the hospital security staff, including Kerik, were fired and deported after an investigation in 1984 by the Saudi secret police.

In his autobiography, Kerik wrote that he was expelled after a physical altercation with a Saudi secret police interrogator.

Kerik joined the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in 1986.

Kerik joined the New York City Police Department in 1986.

He first met Rudolph W. Giuliani in 1990, and during the 1993 New York City mayoral election campaign, served as Giuliani's bodyguard and driver.

He joined the New York City Department of Corrections in 1994, and enjoyed a series of promotions with Giuliani's backing.

He was credited with reducing violence among the city's jail inmates.

He served from 1998 to 2000 as commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction and 2000–2001 as New York City Police Commissioner, during which he oversaw the police response to the September 11 attacks.

Kerik conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a Battery Park City apartment that had been set aside for first responders at Ground Zero.

Giuliani appointed Kerik commissioner of the city Department of Corrections, a post he served in from 1998 to 2000.

Giuliani appointed Kerik the 40th Police Commissioner of New York City on August 21, 2000.

Giuliani made the appointment against the advice of the outgoing police commissioner and many members of his own cabinet.

Kerik's critics noted that he did not have a college degree, which at the time was a requirement for police officers to advance to the rank of captain and above.

As police commissioner, Kerik had a tense relationship with the FBI, in part because he criticized federal agencies for not sharing enough intelligence with local police.

Although crime in New York dropped during Kerik's tenure, he was sometimes criticized for abuse of power.

The New York Times reported that: "Behind the scenes Mr. Kerik ruled like a feudal lord, many former employees have said. He had taken up with a woman who was a correction officer; he was accused of directing officers to staff his wedding. He befriended the agency's inspector general, whose watchdog responsibilities require keeping an arms-length relationship, and the investigator attended his wedding."

After leaving the New York City Police Department, he received a B.S. in social theory, social structure and change, from Empire State College of the State University of New York in 2002.

After dropping out of high school, Kerik enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the Military Police, stationed in Korea.

After leaving the Army, Kerik worked as a security expert in the Middle East; for a time, his clients included the Saudi royal family.

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush appointed Kerik as the interior minister of the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority.

In 2004, Bush nominated Kerik to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

However, Kerik soon withdrew his candidacy, explaining that he had employed an undocumented immigrant as a nanny.

His admission sparked state and federal investigations.

However, in 2004, after his nomination as Secretary of Homeland Security, nine former employees of the hospital told The Washington Post that Kerik worked with a hospital administrator (Nizar Feteih) to surveil people's private affairs, leading to a scandal partly based on Feteih's use of "the institution's security staff to track the private lives of several women with whom he was romantically involved, and men who came in contact with them."

. Kerik and Feteih (among others) were fired and Kerik deported.

In 2006, Kerik pleaded guilty in the Bronx Supreme Court to two unrelated misdemeanor ethics violations and was ordered to pay $221,000 in fines.

In 2009, Kerik pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to eight federal felony charges.

In February 2010, he was sentenced to four years in federal prison.

As a convicted felon, he obtained a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump in 2020 for his numerous federal convictions for tax fraud, ethics violations, and criminal false statements.

On February 18, 2020, President Donald Trump granted Kerik a full pardon for the federal convictions.

After the 2020 United States presidential election, Kerik supported Trump's claims of voter fraud and attempted to help overturn the election results.

Kerik was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Patricia Joann (Bailey) and Donald Raymond Kerik Sr. His mother was Irish American.

His paternal grandfather emigrated from Russia to a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania and changed his surname from Kapurik to Kerik.

Kerik was raised Catholic and grew up in Paterson, New Jersey.