Kerik, lawyer tried to conceal claims [View All]

[REP]

(Newsday)

In the 48 hours before his withdrawal as nominee for the nation's top security post, Bernard and his lawyer scrambled to keep damaging assertions about his past out of the public spotlight.

A week after President George W. Bush announced the former city police commissioner as his choice for Homeland Security secretary, an array of charges and questions about Kerik's past were coming to a boil, threatening his crafted image as an American legend and portending a rougher Senate confirmation process than first predicted.

On Thursday, the day before he took his name from contention, Kerik, 49, was forced to testify in a civil lawsuit about an alleged affair with a subordinate.

The case, which involves Kerik's use of authority when he was city correction commissioner between 1998 and 2000 was brought against the city by a former deputy warden. Plaintiff Eric DeRavin III contends Kerik kept him from getting promoted because he had reprimanded the woman, Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero.

About halfway through Pinero's deposition on Tuesday, attorneys for the city began to raise the issue of having the depositions sealed, particularly the parts that concerned Kerik and Pinero's relationship, lawyers in the case said. On Wednesday, the lawyers requested and received a special hearing before Federal Magistrate Kevin Nathaniel Fox, where they requested that both transcripts be sealed.

more