More Kerik trouble
His lawyer now in feds’ sights
THE FEDERAL prosecutors who put Bernie Kerik in prison are after him again — and his attorney, too.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elliott Jacobson and Perry Carbone sent a letter Tuesday to U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska to “express our concern” that the former police commissioner and his lawyer, Tim Parlatore, violated a protective order with a recent court filing that accuses celebrity lawyer Joe Tacopina of providing information to the feds about Kerik, his former client.
Jacobson and Carbone, who secured Kerik’s 16-count indictment in 2007 and had a stable of Kerik’s lawyers, including Tacopina, disqualified or barred during that case, asked Preska to hold a conference about the disclosure of five proffer sessions in which Tacopina allegedly gave them crucial testimony about Kerik.
The White Plains-based prosecutors said information about Tacopina’s witness status included in Kerik’s June 3 amended complaint accusing Tacopina of running his law office as a racketeering enterprise and lying to prosecutors, “potentially amounted to criminal contempt.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Parlatore said of the feds’ letter to Preska. “Hard to believe none of the supervisors in that office stepped in and stopped them. That shows this is all about intimidation. Mr. Kerik and I won’t be intimidated.”
Jacobson and Carbone’s letter to Preska was preceded by a Saturday afternoon email and phone call by the prosecutors to Parlatore in which they raised the specter of a criminal investigation and arrest of Kerik for violating the order and possibly his supervised release.
Parlatore responded to the unusual call with a letter Sunday to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility accusing Jacobson and Carbone of intimidation and obstruction, and calling for an investigation into the prosecutors’ actions, as well as those of Tacopina’s attorney, Judd Burstein. The OPR will conduct an immediate preliminary review, according to its procedures, and will then determine if an investigation is warranted.
Parlatore said Jacobson and Carbone attempted to get him to violate attorney-client privilege and are injecting the threat of criminal prosecution into the civil lawsuit Kerik filed against Tacopina earlier this year. He also asked for a special prosecutor to oversee the case.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in White Plains did not return a call for comment.
If Preska rules the protective order was violated, which was issued in 2008 by the judge overseeing Kerik’s criminal case, the prosecutors will have to show that Kerik and Parlatore willfully violated the order. That burden might be difficult to meet, however, since Parlatore pointed out in his letter to the OPR that the information at issue was obtained through sources other than the protected material.
“There is nothing confidential about the allegations included in the complaint, as these allegations have been independently obtained through multiple sources unrelated to the protected documents prior to filing,” Parlatore wrote. “None of the protected documents have ever been disclosed to anyone who is not subject to the protective order, including myself.”
The war between Kerik and Tacopina, once friends and business partners, began in late December, when Kerik filed a complaint against Tacopina with the New York bar association.
Kerik followed that with the suit against Tacopina, in which the proffer sessions were referenced.
Tacopina, who recently represented Alex Rodriguez in the disgraced Yankee’s failed bid to avoid a steroid ban, had previously denied such meetings took place. He is suing Kerik for defamation.
The letter from Jacobson and Carbone does not confirm nor contradict Kerik’s claims that Tacopina provided information about the former police commissioner to federal prosecutors during secret meetings held between March of 2007 and November of 2007.
The prosecutors’ letter aligns them once again with Tacopina, whose lawyer, Burstein, begged the feds last month to take action against Kerik. Burstein wrote to Jacobson and Carbone on May 15, encouraging them to investigate Kerik again.
“He publicly thumbs his nose at the system,” Burstein wrote, adding that the U.S. Attorney’s office was losing credibility. Burstein also wrote to Judge Preska on Sunday, claiming that Kerik had violated the protective order.
Burstein’s call for an investigation into the disclosures about Tacopina contradict his public comments. In response to news that Kerik was trying to get the protected materials unsealed, Burstein claimed that he hoped Kerik was successful and that if Tacopina’s consent were required “he’d give it in a minute.”
Tacopina had represented Kerik in 2006 when Kerik was accused of accepting $165,000 in apartment renovations from a company that was attempting to do business with the city. Kerik says Tacopina encouraged him to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges, a move Kerik believes set up the federal prosecution.
Tacopina’s cooperation, according to Kerik’s filing, allowed the feds to get around the statute of limitations and file additional criminal charges against Kerik. Tacopina, who Kerik’s complaint says was under investigation by federal officials for financial and tax crimes, allegedly signed proffer agreements before those sessions that protected him from prosecution as long as he provided truthful information to investigators.