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Dhs nominee tied to new jersey mafia { December 14 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/nyregion/14kerik.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/nyregion/14kerik.html
December 14, 2004
Inquiry of Kerik in '00 Puts Focus on Vetting Issue
By ERIC LIPTON and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
In June 2000, two months before Bernard B. Kerik was appointed police commissioner, New York City's top investigative agency learned that he had a social relationship with the owner of a New Jersey construction company suspected of having business ties to organized crime figures, city documents show.
In two days of testimony before the city's Department of Investigation, the owner of the company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, spoke frequently of Mr. Kerik as he tried to establish why his company was reputable enough to do business with the city.
The company's security director, Lawrence Ray, had just been charged with stock fraud. Asked why he had hired him in 1998, the owner, Frank DiTommaso, said he did so in part because Mr. Kerik had vouched for him. Mr. DiTommaso also detailed his social relationship with Mr. Kerik, who was then the city's correction commissioner, and mentioned that he had employed Donald Kerik, the commissioner's brother.
Those disclosures, none of which indicate that Mr. Kerik did anything illegal or improper, did prompt city investigators to formally interview Mr. Kerik, city officials said. It is unclear, though, what Mr. Kerik told investigators about his relationship with Mr. DiTommaso and his company.
A spokesman for the Department of Investigation declined to comment yesterday when asked whether any of the information concerning Mr. Kerik and Interstate Industrial had been shared at the time with any other city officials.
But Rudolph W. Giuliani said in an interview yesterday that none of those facts were brought to his attention in August 2000 when, as mayor, he appointed Mr. Kerik as New York's top police official. And there is no indication that the White House was aware of the findings before it nominated the Mr. Kerik to take over the Department of Homeland Security on Dec. 3, a nomination that has now been withdrawn.
"I didn't get to consider it then," Mr. Giuliani said, "and I did not know much about it all until this confirmation process started for homeland security."
Mr. Giuliani said he did not believe any of the revelations he had heard would have changed his mind on Mr. Kerik's appointment.
But the fact that neither Mr. Giuliani nor the White House had learned of Mr. Kerik's dealings with Mr. DiTommaso, or of the city investigation that at least briefly explored those ties, would appear to highlight the vulnerabilities in background checks that are made of government officials, including those poised to serve in some of the most high-profile posts in the city and the nation.
The White House said yesterday that its check into Mr. Kerik's past had actually been more extensive than officials had indicated earlier. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said that the review had gone on for weeks' before Mr. Bush nominated Mr. Kerik. On Sunday, a senior administration official said the review had taken only a week.
There were also indications that Mr. Kerik may have been under consideration for the job of homeland security secretary as early as the summer. A former city official said Mr. Kerik went to Washington twice in August to meet with White House officials about his views on domestic security. One of the officials was Frances Townsend, who is President Bush's domestic security adviser and a longtime friend of Mr. Giuliani's.
Two senior Giuliani administration officials who were involved in the deliberations over the selection of the police commissioner in 2000 said in interviews on Monday that they, too, had not known about the information involving Mr. Kerik and Interstate. But they added that the Department of Investigation often shared such findings only with the mayor and the city's top lawyer.
"The question is, what did the mayor know?" the former city official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he now works in the private sector. "It should have been reported to him by the Department of Investigation. The mayor should have been told about it. And he should have considered it."
For now, then, it appears that the questions raised several years ago about Mr. Kerik and his relations with Interstate surfaced only after he had been nominated for the cabinet post and just a few days before he announced he was withdrawing his nomination.
Mr. Kerik last Friday withdrew his name after in a telephone call to President Bush after, he said, he realized that he had not paid taxes on behalf of his housekeeper and that she appeared to be in the United States illegally. The identity and whereabouts of the nanny have not been released, although Mr. Kerik has said that she has left the United States.
Mr. Kerik has not disputed that he knows Interstate's owner, Mr. DiTommaso. And yesterday he questioned whether Mr. DiTommaso has had any established ties to organized crime.
"I know there's been a lot written about him," Mr. Kerik said of Mr. DiTommaso on Monday, in an interview with NY1 cable television news. "I personally know him to be a good man and I don't know about any connections with him and organized crime."
Mr. DiTommaso has never been charged with any crime.
Earlier this year, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission granted the company a license to do work on Atlantic City casinos after considering the accusations of mob connections. But the decision has been appealed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.
New York City, on the other hand, recommended denying the company a license to operate a transfer station in Staten Island earlier this year, citing the company's dealings with organized crime figures and concluding that its officials "lack the character, honesty and integrity required."
Interstate's application for a license has been pending since 1996 and became a particular topic of interest in June 2000, just weeks after the best man at Mr. Kerik's wedding, Lawrence Ray, was indicted on racketeering charges unrelated to the company.
During two days of testimony, city officials asked Mr. DiTommaso how and why he had come to hire Mr. Ray as a $100,000 a year security director. Mr. DiTommaso told the city investigators that Mr. Ray, with whom, he said, he had had a previous unsatisfactory business relationship, had told him that he knew top New York law enforcement officials, including Mr. Kerik, and Mr. DiTommaso thought he might help with their licensing problems.
He told investigators that he then spoke to Mr. Kerik, who told him Mr. Ray was a "top shelf guy," according to his deposition. "I just remember him telling me, Larry Ray 100 percent."
Over time, Mr. DiTommaso told investigators, he and Mr. Kerik developed their own relationship. Mr. Kerik invited Mr. DiTommaso to his Christmas Party in 1998 and the company executive said he would stop by occasionally when he was in New York to visit the commissioner.
"I liked Bernie," he told the city investigators. "I thought he was a pretty interesting guy. Still do."
Mr. DiTommaso also told investigators that he had hired a security company run by a former police boss of Mr. Kerik's and that he employed Donald Kerik, although he did not specifically identify him as Bernard Kerik's brother.
Norman Dion, one of the city investigators who interviewed Mr. DiTommaso, declined comment yesterday on whether the information was forwarded to his superiors at the department. It is not clear that city investigators ever learned that Mr. Ray, the best man at Mr. Kerik's 1998 wedding, contends he helped pay $7,000 for the affair or that Mr. Kerik, according to a city official, vouched for his friend to the city agency that was considering Interstate's license application.
Elisabeth Bumiller, Christopher Drew and Kevin Flynn contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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