More good news

BFF

Officials Say Kerik Faces a Second Investigation

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: August 4, 2006

Former Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik is under federal investigation for possible financial improprieties unrelated to the crimes he pleaded guilty to last month in state court, two law enforcement officials said yesterday.

The federal investigation began about a year ago and has focused on a foundation affiliated with the city’s Department of Correction during Mr. Kerik’s tenure as its commissioner, from 1998 to 2000, according to one of the officials, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Kerik later served as police commissioner from August 2000 to December 2001.

Last month, Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in State Supreme Court in the Bronx. Under an agreement that allowed him to avoid jail time and a felony conviction, he admitted accepting $165,000 in apartment renovations from a company accused of having ties to organized crime; he agreed to pay $221,000 in fines.

The foundation at the center of the federal inquiry first came under scrutiny in early 2003, after an article in The Daily News raised questions about its finances.

In July of that year, a former high-ranking Correction Department official was arrested and later pleaded guilty to mail fraud charges, admitting that he stole more than $137,000 from the fund.

But hundreds of thousands of dollars of the foundation’s money, which came from rebates on cigarettes purchased for inmates, was apparently never accounted for.

The federal investigation is being conducted by the F.B.I. and prosecutors from the office of Michael Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan, who have subpoenaed bank records, one of the officials said. The precise suspicions about Mr. Kerik with regard to the foundation funds were unclear.

Mark Mershon, the assistant F.B.I. director who heads the bureau’s New York office, declined to comment, as did Lauren McDonough, a spokeswoman for Mr. Garcia.