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Bernard Kerik's Four Year Sentence Upheld
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 31, 2011
Modified Mar 31, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 31, 2011
Modified Mar 31, 2011
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Bernard Kerik, the disgraced NYPD Commissioner under Rudy Giuliani, will not be seeing the outside of his minimum-security prison any time in the near future. Today a three-judge appeals panel considered the "fairness" of Kerik's four year sentence and found no reason to overturn it. Kerik’s lawyers had argued that Judge Stephen C. Robinson's four-year sentence "had been unreasonable and showed judicial bias," alleging that Robinson "took offense" at Kerik's criticism of prosecutors. But the appeals court found that rich:
"To be sure, the district court noted the irony in Kerik (or his supporters) leveling baseless accusations of corruption against the prosecutors when it was he who had 'used his (official) position for his own personal gain... In sum, we conclude that an objective observer viewing the whole record would not question the district court’s impartiality and, accordingly, we identify no ground for resentencing," the panel decided today.
Kerik's sentence was significantly longer than what he'd hoped for when pleading guilty to lying on his application to be the director of Homeland Security, lying to the feds, tax fraud, and accepting $250,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment, provided by a company accused of having mob ties. Robinson had added more than a year to what was recommended in the plea agreement, but considering the maximum sentence was 61 years, maybe Kerik should just take it and like it. He's currently cooling his heals in Federal Correctional Institute in Cumberland, Maryland, where he sleeps in a bunk bed in a dormitory-style prison facility with dozens of other inmates. He'll be out in 2013.
Tagged
Bernard Kerik
corruption
giuliani
kerik
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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