Judge Gives Bernard Kerik 4 Years in Jail

A federal judge sentenced disgraced NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik to four years in prison today, berating him for trying to exploit 9/11. The sentence was harsher than the 27 to 33 months the prosecutor had recommended in Kerik’s plea bargain, in which he admitted to eight charges, including lying to the White House, taking a payoff from a mob-linked contractor, and falsifying his tax returns.

Kerik was head of the police department during the 9/11 attacks, which almost landed him a job in Bush’s Department of Homeland Security the New York Daily News reports. “The fact that Mr. Kerik would use that event for personal gain and aggrandizement is a dark place in the soul for me,” Judge Stephen Robinson declared. (More NYPD stories.)