Lawyers are known as liars, and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has commissioned a study to get to the bottom of it as reported by Jacob Gershman for The Wall Street Journal: "more than a thousand judges and lawyers have been asked to fill out a
confidential online survey seeking their help 'in assessing the
prevalence, significance, and effect of perjury and false statements in
the New York County civil justice system.'"
Brothers Frank and Peter DiTommaso were accused of lying before a grand jury about free work on a home renovation for one-time NYC police commissioner Bernie Kerik, and a Bronx jury has acquitted Frank but convicted Peter as reported by Dan Beekman for the Daily News. Kerik is serving time in a federal facility on corruption charges, and was called by Bronx prosecutors as a "reluctant witness" at the DiTommaso trial where the former top cop testified that the DiTommaso brothers did not pick up the $250,000 tab which was in seeeming contradiction of his 2009 allocution as reported by Douglas Montero and Dan Mangan for the New York Post:
"in his two separate guilty pleas, Kerik
said the brothers' New
Jersey-based Interstate Industrial Corp. and its subsidiaries paid for
work done on his Riverdale apartment in 2000."
U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan may be in hot water over his testimony before Congress concerning the randy behavior of several officers with working girls in Cartagena, Colombia while prepping for President Obama's visit there earlier this year as reported by Jana Winter for Fox News: a "report indicates Sullivan may have obstructed Congress by lying about the criminal associations of prostitutes involved in the scandal" including one who allegedly "was tied to a drug cartel for laundering money."
Bernie Kerik, the one-time NYC police commissioner who pled guilty to accepting free work on a home renovation, now says that his former friends Frank and Peter DiTommaso did not pick up the $250,000 tab as reported by Douglas Montero and Dan Mangan for the New York Post:
In his two separate guilty pleas, Kerik said the brothers' New
Jersey-based Interstate Industrial Corp. and its subsidiaries paid for
work done on his Riverdale apartment in 2000. * * * The DiTommasos are on trial on perjury charges in The Bronx for telling a grand jury that Interstate didn't pay for the work. "Absolutely
not," Kerik said, when asked by a DiTommaso lawyer whether the brothers
ever even discussed the renovations with him.
The stunning reversal may set Kerik up for a perjury charge in connection with his 2009 allocution before a federal judge, and save the DiTimmaso brothers from a guilty finding by the jury at their ongoing trial.
Kerik is "the key witness against" the DiTommaso brothers, and he "had been forced by prosecutors to testify" as reported by James Ford for WPIX
Bernard Kerik, the former NYC police commissioner and one-time nominee to lead the U.S. Homeland Security Department, has been stewing in a federal prison for accepting free work on a home renovation, and yesterday the ex-top cop changed out of his prison jumpsuit into civilian clothes in order to testify in a Bronx courtroom at the perjury trial of former friends Frank and Peter DiTommaso as reported by Daniel Beekman for the Daily News:
The DiTommaso brothers are charged with lying to a 2006 grand jury investigating Kerik for improprieties dating to the late 1990s. The brothers, who owned a construction company that was under investigation for mafia ties, said they didn't pay for renovations to Kerik's
Riverdale apartment in 1999. But the NYPD bigwig later admitted that they did.
So would Frank Serpico, the NYPD detective who blew the whistle on police corruption which sparked the Knapp Commission, characterize Bernie Kerik as a meat eater or a grass eater?
Barack Obama's administration supplied the Mexican drug cartels with thousands of high-powered assault weapons pursuant to an operation dubbed Fast and Furious which have killed over 200 people, including border patrol agent Brian Terry, and now in Nixonian-style all the President's men are engaged in a coverup campaign which includes outright lies and obstructionist schemes before the Congressional committee investigating the bloody mess.
Yesterday a clearly exasperated House Oversight Committee was left with no option but to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt after he refused to produce relevant documents to investigators by relying upon the new-found claim of executive privilege.
Even though the Congressional inquiry was commenced more than a year ago on the immediate heels of Brian Terry's murder, the White House now cynically asserts that the search for truth is nothing more than election year politics. Have you no shame, Mr. President? A federal agent was murdered by mob thugs who were armed by your administration, and your only response to the inquiry is a feeble claim of political witchhunt? Of course, the White House never cared about Brian Terry's murder in the first instance so it simply cannot understand that others may be motivated by factors other than politics -- you know, things like justice for the fallen agent and compassion for his family.
Indeed, last November Holder admitted that he did not even bother to muster an apology to the Terry family for their loss, and arrogantly -- and wrongly -- told Congress that "it is not fair . . . to assume that the mistakes that happened in Fast & Furious directly led to the death of Agent Terry."
"Mistakes that happened?" From the start Fast and Furious at the very least was an idiotic operation if not a criminal scheme. Of course, there's always felony stupid which likely explains President Obama's sudden move to block the investigation by dubiously invoking executive privilege over the presumably damning documents.
No wonder the National Border Patrol Council which represents the nation's 17,000 border agents has called for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder as reported by Jerry Seper for The Washington Times: "Council President George E. McCubbin III, a 25-year Border Patrol veteran himself, described Mr. Holder's actions in the case as 'a slap in the face to all Border Patrol agents who serve this country,' adding that the attorney general has shown 'an utter failure of leadership at the highest levels of government.'"
When the top law enforcement officer in the country no longer has the confidence of the boots on the ground it's time for him to resign.
