Bernard Kerik was the police commissioner of New York City from 2000 to 2001, and Rudy Giuliani’s right-hand man. He gained a degree of prominence for his coordination of the relief efforts during the 9/11 attacks. He seemed, at the time, a venerable and incorruptible figure. Shortly after 9/11 I was given a copy of his extremely interesting autobiography - still one of the most readable and interesting books I have ever read.
Several years later, Kerik suddenly made the news again, as he was brought up on massive charges of fraud and tax corruption; his legal battles continued from 2007 until 2010 when he was finally convicted and sentenced to four years in federal prison - where he is currently being held.
It seems rather impossible for any prisoner to be more of a marked man than Bernard Kerik, except maybe a notorious judge. There are doubtlessly thousands of men still in prison right now because of him. And I would guess that the “bounty” in money and reputation is immense.
Presumably Kerik is in protective custody and will serve out his entire sentence in such. Does he have any contact with the general population? Does he have access to a library, dining facility, gym, or anywhere else where he might encounter gen-pop prisoners? If so, he must be watching his back constantly.
Do you think he will, in the coming three years, be assassinated?
Who would put up this monetary bounty? Why get involved in murder-for-hire of a public figure? Why offer anything to prisoners(who could rat you out), to kill someone who can’t hurt you anymore?
According to his wikipedia page, he’s in a medium security federal prison in Maryland. Not exactly Club Fed, but it ain’t Attica, either. Don’t really expect him to have many problems there.
Mob informants, child molesters, double-crossers, ex-gang members- there are probably a lot of prisoners who have reason to fear for their safety. I don’t know how these things go, but I think the federal prison system would probably be your best bet for remaining safe in jail. Kerik is going to serve his sentence in a prison in Cumberland, Maryland, and I assume most of the people who are in jail “because” of him would be in New York. And that’s another thing - how many inmates think the police commissioner is responsible for them being in jail as opposed to the police who arrested them, the prosecutors, the judge who sentenced them, and so on? I think Kerik hasn’t been an active police office since the 1980s.
That’s true, but during the 80s, Kerik was an undercover detective in the NYPD and he put a huge number of figures connected to international drug cartels in prison. Some of them are probably still in prison. Undercover. That means he pretended to be guys’ friends, and then arrested them or had them arrested, just like Joe Pistone in Donny Brasco. Combine this with his having been police commissioner, and he seems like he’d be a huge target.
I think that he should be freed from jail and that he should work off his sentence in community service, doing any number of things. But that’s never going to happen. If he wants to be in general population, I don’t see why they shouldn’t let him - but if he requests to be put in protective custody, the request should be granted. The guy made some mistakes; but before that, he was a tremendous force for good in New York, and he doesn’t deserve to be shanked in prison.
Kerik was great at graft . He did a lot of good if you like an apartment specifically for carrying on with women. He was as dirty as they come and is where he belongs. He also is a tough bastard who will not be an easy target for anyone.
Certainly, I expect the prison department to do as much as is reasonable to keep him safe while he’s in prison, as much as I expect them to do that for any prisoner, but to allow him to not serve his sentence at all? Nah.
In fact, when it comes to police who are convicted of crimes, I’m pretty hard core that they need to spend some time in prison. They have betrayed the trust of society. Kerik committed his crimes while “he was a tremendous force for good”, and he needs to pay the price.
I know Kerik committed (financial) crimes, but it just doesn’t bother me very much. The way I see it, the amount of money that was ultimately saved because of the crimes that he prevented during his time as police commissioner more than makes up for however much money he may have failed to declare in taxes. The “he needs to be punished” argument never made sense to me; what he needs to do is make restitution to the government, and the best way for him to do that is not from behind bars, but doing some kind of public service pro bono.
I mean, it bothers me, but not on the same visceral level that I am bothered by murder, rape, forcible mugging and other crimes that were massively reduced directly because of Kerik’s leadership of the police department. On an intellectual level I realize what he did was wrong, but I can’t get worked up about it. His sentence seems out of proportion to his crime, as it is significantly more dangerous for him to be in prison than for someone who was never associated with law enforcement. Not only was Kerik a police detective and a police commissioner, he was also a corrections officer and then corrections commissioner - in other words, he’s an ex-“hack”.
They shouldn’t, but all of the prisoners who are at increased risk should be protected more. Gays, young offenders, whites in a majority-nonwhite prison, or any other racial minority (minority within the prison, not in society at large), ex-cops, and informers, when they are sentenced to prison, are at greater risk, and they need to be highly protected. They are in essence getting a harsher sentence than someone sentenced to an identical prison term who lacks those risk factors, and that means that fairness is not being practiced. The playing field needs to be leveled.
All the more reason for him to avoid breaking the law. Do you feel that any police officer who is convicted of a crime should not be sentenced to prison? Do you feel that any corrections officer who is convicted of a crime should not be sentenced to prison?
Why should Kerik be any different? Good heavens, I just don’t get it!
That’s not what you’re arguing. You’re not arguing that Kerik should be in prison and needs greater protection. You’re arguing that he should not be in prison at all, but should be serving community service.
I do think that crimes against the tax code might be better punished by some other method than incarceration, but that’s a little different than the OP’s concern.
His crime against the tax code was due to undeclared income he received as bribery. I assume that the OP thinks that Al Capone was also over-sentenced.
Capone actually needed to physically be in prison so that he was no longer able to run his criminal enterprise. If Capone were out of prison, he would be directing gang activities, hence, more street crime.