Bernard Kerik said he hopes he'll be remembered for 'my 30 years of public service' instead of 'imperfections or the mistakes that I may have made.' On eve of prison, Kerik reflects

On the eve of heading to a Maryland federal prison for a four-year sentence, disgraced former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said he hopes that he'll be remembered for "my 30 years of public service" instead of "imperfections or the mistakes that I may have made."

Kerik, who George W. Bush had tapped to head the Department of Homeland Security before scandal scuttled his appointment, also rapped the prosecutors in his case, and the judge who gave him a sentence that well exceeded the federal guidelines on his guilty plea to eight felony counts including charges of lying to the White House.


Kerik began his association with Rudy Giuliani as his driver during the 1993 campaign, was ultimately appointed by the mayor first as Correction Department commissioner and then head of the nation’s largest police force in 2000. Catapulted by the fame he gained in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, Kerik was tapped by then-President Bush as the interim interior minister in Iraq for a few months in 2003, and then again as his nominee to head Homeland Security – only to have it fall apart within days as Kerik withdrew his name amid claims of unpaid nanny taxes.

Those stories gave way to others about Kerik's time as Corrections and Police Commissioner, including allegations of using an apartment near Ground Zero meant for emergency workers to carry on an affair and having unpaid work done on his home by mob-linked firms, and he finally pled guilty in 2009 to several charges related to that second scandal.

The drip of scandals involving Kerik, 54, became an issue for Giuliani during his 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Kerik said he took the second federal plea deal prosecutors had offered because he was "financially helpless" and facing a year in prison waiting for court-appointed lawyers. He said the 33-month sentence prescribed by federal guidelines was "severe....especially considering my otherwise unblemished record of service to this country."

Judge Stephen Robinson instead gave him four years, saying, "The fact that Mr. Kerik would use that event [9/11] for personal gain and aggrandizement is a dark place in the soul for me," and vowing tough penalties if the former top cop left his property in Franklin Lakes, NJ, while he was under house arrest awaiting his prison intake date.

"Words cannot express my disappointment in the prosecutors, the judge and his sentence that followed," Kerik said in his statement. "I have repeatedly expressed remorse for what I may have done, however, unlike many, I can’t remain silent in the face of what I believe has been a gross injustice, which I pray will be remedied by an appellate court."

The statement made no mention of Giuliani.

At home with an electronic ankle bracelet for the past five months since his guilty plea, Kerik said he'd been preparing his ten- and seven-year-old daughters for him leaving.

He said he "had to teach them that there are times when we are put in situations which are beyond our control and that no matter how undeserved, unsought, or unwanted, we must find the strength, courage, and perseverance to carry on and move forward," and added he had watched the original "Rocky" movie to help himself find those virtues.

"In my life, I have been confronted with extraordinary challenges, from the age of three when I was abandoned by my own mother who was later murdered, to gun battles on the streets of New York City, through the aftermath of 9/11, to my work rebuilding a shattered Iraq, these are the principles by which I have lived," he said.

Sounding defiant, Kerik said, "I became a convenient target of personal and political attacks, most of which were waged by people that have never met me and know nothing about me other than the media headlines that they have read. As I have listened to my critics, I have often wondered, how they would have fared under the same circumstances and the same scrutiny."

He ended, saying he hoped to be with his family again "sooner rather than later."

Kerik will be heading for the Federal Correcitonal Institution in Cumberland, which has both a medium-security facility for men and an adjacent minimum-security site, which is said to be the pen Kerik will be placed in.