NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who led the department during the 9/11 attacks, has died at the age of 69 after a private battle with illness.
Kerik served as commissioner under then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani from 2000 to 2001.
Giuliani, who maintained a close friendship with Kerik long after their time in City Hall, shared his condolences online.
“Remembering my friend and confidant, Bernard Kerik,” he said in a post to his X account.
The NYPD also offered their condolences, mourning the passing of Kerik in social media post.
“For nearly two decades, Kerik served and protected New Yorkers in the NYPD, including helping rebuild the city in the aftermath of 9/11,” the NYPD said.
FBI Director Kash Patel called Kerik a “warrior, a patriot, and one of the most courageous public servants this country has ever known.”
Kerik, an Army veteran rose through the ranks of the NYPD to the top position of commissioner before falling from grace when he pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud and false statement charges in 2010.
The charges stemmed partially from over $250,000 in apartment renovations he received from a construction firm that authorities say counted on Kerik to convince New York officials it had no organized crime links.
During Kerik’s sentencing, the judge noted that he committed some of the crimes while serving as “the chief law enforcement officer for the biggest and grandest city this nation has.”
He served three years in prison before his release in 2013.
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President Donald Trump pardoned Kerik during a 2020 clemency blitz. Kerik was among the guests feting Trump after his first appearance in federal court in Florida in a case related to his handling of classified documents, attending the former president’s remarks at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club.
Kerik was appointed by Giuliani to serve as police commissioner in 2000 and was in the position during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In Kerik’s 2015 book, “From Jailer to Jailed,” he described becoming “America’s Top Cop” after the attacks.
“But I’d give anything for that day not to have happened. I wish it hadn’t. But it did,” he wrote. “And I happened to be there at the time. I was there, and I did the best I could do under the circumstances. It’s all any of us did.”
He was tapped by President George W. Bush to help organize Iraq’s police force in 2003, then nominated to head the U.S. Department of Homeland Security the following year.
But Kerik caught the administration off guard when he abruptly withdrew his nomination, saying he had uncovered information that led him to question the immigration status of a person he employed as a housekeeper and nanny.
In 2005, Kerik founded the Kerik Group, a crisis and risk management consulting firm.
He later worked for the former mayor of New York City surrounding the efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss.
Kerik grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, where he dropped out of the the trouble-filled Eastside High School later depicted in the 1989 film “Lean on Me.”
He joined the Army, where he became a military policeman stationed in South Korea. He went on to work private security in Saudi Arabia before returning stateside to supervise a jail in New Jersey.
He joined the NYPD in the late 1980s. He was tapped in the 1990s to run New York’s long-troubled jail system, including the city’s notorious Riker’s Island complex.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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