In this Flash Back episode, Jason Hartman hosts former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison for an ethics violation. While on the inside, he didn’t believe that everyone in prison was bad or deserved some of their prison sentences. He discusses how the criminal justice system is set up for destroying, not reforming people’s lives. He gives suggestions on how to change the system.
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Jason Hartman 1:03
It’s my pleasure to welcome Commissioner Bernard Kerik to the show. He is the former NYPD Commissioner, former nominee for the head of the US Department of Homeland Security author is from jailer to jailed my journey from correction and police commissioner to inmate number 84888 dash 054. Bernard, welcome. How are you?
Bernard Kerik 1:27
Thank you, sir. I’m good.
Jason Hartman 1:28
This is an amazing story. And I think it speaks very deeply to the problems with our criminal justice system. why we have so many people on a per capita basis in this country incarcerated. I mean, it is just, it’s amazing. We’re supposed to be the human rights leader of the world. Right. Tell us about your story. You know, how did you go from police commissioner of New York City and Department of Homeland Security nominee to a prison inmate. What happened?
Bernard Kerik 1:57
Well in in 2004, President Bush nominated me to take over the Department of Homeland Security. And about a week later, I had to admit that I had a nanny a domestic servant that I had failed to pay taxes on. My wife and I paid her cash over about a two year period. And prior to any investigations during that period, I paid the taxes paid the fines, paid the penalties, but the federal government came in, in 2006, started an investigation. And ultimately I pled guilty to eight counts, many of which had to do with my children’s nanny and some apartment renovations. They were tax tax charges and false statement charges. And I was sentenced to 48 months in prison and I served three years in 11 days. So it all started with my nomination.
Jason Hartman 2:56
Wow, that’s, that’s unbelievable. So so it was Paying the nanny in cash and not paying what payroll taxes?
Bernard Kerik 3:03
Yeah, I mean, look, it’s it’s something that’s, you know, it goes on every day in this country and other presidential nominees. You know, Kimball wood who was nominated by President Clinton as the for, for attorney general. Zoe Baird, nominated by President Clinton for attorney general both had any issues, and many others
Jason Hartman 3:28
was your nanny legal citizen. No, she was not.
Bernard Kerik 3:32
I didn’t know that at the time, but it really didn’t make any difference.
Jason Hartman 3:36
And but your nanny was like a full time person. Right. So Couldn’t you couldn’t argue that it was an independent contractor doing multiple nanny jobs? Okay. Wow. Okay. And so, so just to be clear, and we’ll move on from this, but what happened after the nanny investigation, I mean, they the nanny thing arose, but that triggered a deeper investigation. Right?
Bernard Kerik 3:55
Well, it What happened was is as soon as I withdrew my note nomination in December of Oh 304 The minute I withdrew, it’s like everybody crawled out from under the rock. You know, and I remember the president’s chief of staff in the car telling me this. He said people will come after you. He says the second you withdraw. You know, you’re going to get attacked from every personal and professional critic you’ve ever had in the 35 years. I was in law enforcement, and I did. And I was initially investigated for apartment renovations I had paid for. The city said I didn’t pay enough. I was charged with an ethics violation. 1618 months grand jury investigation. The Bronx da concluded there was no crime. It was an ethics violation. I had to pay $220,000 fine. I did that. And immediately after I did that, the federal government came in and charged me again for the same started investigating again for this. The same thing the apartment renovation And the nanny tax and a few other things. So it’s, it seemed like it went on for eternity. It was about five years of state and federal investigations before I pled guilty.
Jason Hartman 5:11
Apartment renovations.
Bernard Kerik 5:13
Yeah, I, somebody came in to do some renovations on my apartment. I paid the contractor in the city basically said, I didn’t pay him enough. And, you know, it’s a long story, but and it’s all in the book. It’s it’s laid out in the book.
Jason Hartman 5:26
Wow. Unbelievable. So, you know, there there is a regulation for everything in this country. It’s it amazes me, Commissioner that, you know, we’re all breaking the law. The government has made us all criminals, because there are so many laws. I was brought up with, with my mother saying, Jason, ignorance of the law is no excuse. And even back then there’s no way you could know the law. You know, if the law were simple, that would be a legitimate statement. But it’s so amazingly complex
Bernard Kerik 6:01
today. It’s, uh, I don’t think anybody in this country understands the extent or the the enormity of the legal system. The laws specifically, I think there’s, you know, at last count, I think there’s about 4700 different laws on the books. Nobody can really tell you what they are and where they are exactly. But we have a much bigger problem. And this is something I learned when I went to prison. Look, I’ve been in this business 3035 years. I put a lot of people in prison, bad guys that did bad things, really bad things. And I thought, that’s what we did, you know, in our criminal justice system, and then I got to prison and I met commercial fishermen that caught too many fish. And I met you know, a guy that sold a whale’s tooth on eBay. A young man that in his Incoming a mortgage application to buy his first home for his new bride or the head of Gibson guitars, there’s a bunch of that stuff go on. And then then on the other side, you have these first time low level nonviolent drug offenses, these kids in the minority neighborhoods, they’re getting sentenced to 10 and 15 years, for first time, low level, nonviolent drug offenses. It’s insane. And and I have to tell you, we’re creating, basically a permanent underclass of American citizens by doing this. Yeah. Wow. That’s just that is just really
Jason Hartman 7:35
sad. Now, I gotta ask you, do you think that a lot of this is because we’ve, you know, we’ve privatized a large part of the prison, and I don’t know what the numbers are on that, you know, but the but the prison system has become a business, unfortunately. And, you know, there have been, I think it was in Pennsylvania, a judge who was, you know, putting juveniles in you know, juvenile hall and collecting kickbacks. from, you know, the companies, this is just
Bernard Kerik 8:03
disgusting. Listen, you have some of this privatization stuff that’s, that’s corrupt and it’s gone down the wrong path. But I think there’s a much bigger picture and the bigger picture is it’s the overall industry, the correction industry in a whole as a whole. And that’s state agencies, federal agencies, all over the country. It’s an $80 billion a year industry with a B.
Jason Hartman 8:32
When you have an industry that size, you have a lot of lobbyists in Washington, that are fighting for these laws. You have a lot of lobbyists in Washington that are supporting everything in anything to incarcerate to violate probationers to, to keep people within the system. Keep building on the system. It’s literally like they hire lobbyists to make the laws more strict. More draconian, so they can get more business. This is insanity. These are people that have people’s lives. But how can it be on the public side? See, I can understand it on the private side, that’s pretty simple. You know, these, these prison companies will hire lobbyists and they’ll go out and lobby for stricter laws, but of course there are public employee unions and so forth. But, I mean, they’re not lobbying for tougher I can’t imagine it would be on the government
Bernard Kerik 9:27
side. Oh, yes. They are really believing Yeah. Listen, if if the unions, whether it’s in California or New York, or wherever the case may be if the unions feel that they’re gonna, you’re decreasing the, the staffing ratios in your prisons, if you’re gonna close down prisons, they’re losing members, that’s having an impact on their membership. They’re gonna fight to prevent that from happening.
Jason Hartman 9:53
That has got to be the scariest thing ever. How does this tell us about how the justice system you know Monster risers, young men, especially it’s especially a male thing of every race and ethnic background.
Bernard Kerik 10:06
Well, here’s, here’s one of the things I observed. And I, I guess I never thought of before. You know, before I went into the system, and I ran two of the largest law enforcement organizations in the country, the NYPD, and I ran the New York City Department of correction, Rikers Island, which at the time I took over, was about, it was probably the most violent jail system in the country. So I know the system I know what it’s supposed to accomplish, but I never looked at the collateral damage to individuals to families, especially to children. You know, I had a job to do. I focused on the job and I never focused on the aftermath. But the reality is, we take these young kids out of the minority communities. We charged them with the first time low level drug offense, nonviolent drug offense. And there are people out there that say well, they get with They deserve and they belong in prison. Well, what I would say is, don’t be so fast to lock these kids up in a cage, and think that that’s a betterment to society. Because the reality is, once they’re in, if you give a kid 10 years, he’s doing eight and a half in the system. And you’re going to teach him everything there is to know about criminality. You’re going to suck at all the societal values out of this kid, you’re going to institutionalize them, you’re going to turn them into a monster. And then Where’s he going? He’s going back into society. And then we stand around and Washington in a big circle jerk. I want to know why the recidivism rate isn’t dropping. Well, it’s not dropping because you keep creating monsters. And that’s what you do you turn these kids into thugs, even the non the non drug offenders I was with a a young man that was 2021 years old United States Marine sniper who sold a pair of night vision goggles goes on eBay, his own personal night vision goggles. He sold them on eBay to an international broker that didn’t have the right permit. So he gets arrested. So
Jason Hartman 12:08
he’s like an international arms dealer. Let me down. Right. Unbelievable. Right,
Bernard Kerik 12:13
exactly. So he gets arrested, didn’t even know he committed a crime. He does. 30 months, he sentenced to 30 months. The problem is, he spent 24 months within the system. And I can tell you when he came into the system, I know him I met him. He came to me, I counseled them. He, you know, he was a marine. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. He was. He was a marine from head to toe. 24 months later, he was like a little thug. He ran around the camp like an idiot doing things he shouldn’t do, hanging with people he shouldn’t hang out with. And I thought, that’s what that’s what they’ve done in 24 months to this kid. What do you do after eight and a half years, you send these kids back into society. They’re convicted felons. They have no work ethic. They have nothing to depend on when they get out. They can’t get a job because they’re a convicted felon. And they have no other choice but to revert to crime. And we wonder why the recidivism rates not dropping? Well, you know, we’re not doing anything to help it.
Jason Hartman 13:19
This is just a tragic, you know, I would venture to say that this is one of the biggest problems in America. You know, this is just a scary thought. what it amounts to is something where the government, it’s like 1984, the book, you know, the government always has something on us. So if they don’t like us, if someone wants to further their career, you know, a district attorney or whatever, they can use this selective enforcement. And boy, I’ll tell you, listeners, if you have your own business, you are really in trouble because there’s just a zillion little laws that you don’t need. Know about I mean, is the counter height the right height in your office for ADA requirements, you know, maybe it’s an inch to lie and and you know may not be jail but it may be a fine Yeah, but you know, you know what, Jason? There’s two issues one. There’s a guy named Harvey Silverglade that wrote a book A few years ago, I had him on the show. Yeah,
Bernard Kerik 14:19
yeah, three, three felonies a day, basically talking about any given on any given day. Any citizen in this country could commit three felonies a day and be prosecuted. But and listen, that’s on the criminal side. Here’s the problem. And this relates to what you just said. Today, we’re taking people for ethics violations. We’re turning it and turning them into criminals, convicted felons. We’re taking people that commits a regulatory violation. We make them convicted felons, civil violations. We make them convicted felons. Somebody goes out hunting, and they shoot the wrong animal with the wrong permit or the wrong ammunition and stuff. stead of finding them suspending that license. No, we put we send them to prison. We turn them into a convicted felon, the commercial fisherman that caught too many fish, convicted felon, the kid that was sold the whale’s tooth, convicted felon, you can’t get around in society
Jason Hartman 15:14
after that. I mean, I you know, isn’t I mean, of course punishment is one of the goals of the correctional system. But but also reform, right? Is there even an ounce of reform here? Well, there’s,
Bernard Kerik 15:26
listen, it’s all about accountability. And in the, at the end of the day, that commercial fishermen, you could without any doubt, in my mind, you could hold them accountable. You could suspend this license, you could find them you could find them double, you could take all this fish for God’s sakes. There’s a number of things you could do without destroying him personally, and professionally. And that’s what we do. We destroy him not not to mention all the people on his boat that work there. The six guys on the boat, they lost their jobs. So they’re on unemployment who pays for that? We do it Wife work for the company. Yeah. And then they may turn, they may turn into criminals to, you know, one or two of them because they need money. And you know, there you go. The wife goes on a public assistance, he goes to prison, he loses his boat, he loses his business. And then now this guy’s been fishing since he was 17 years old. He’s now 55. He comes out. He’s doomed until the day he dies, because he can’t do the only thing he knows. He can never go back into what he did. Why isn’t there why wasn’t there another way to hold them accountable? And that’s what we’re doing. We’re creating this permanent underclass of people, of citizens into, were sucking all these people out of the workforce, that were paying taxes, taking care of the family taking care of their kids, pillars in the community, we take them out of the workforce, eternally.
Jason Hartman 16:50
This has got a huge multiplier effect in a very negative way. You know, what do we do about it? What it will this ever see, the problem you have is you haven’t Iron triangles that are formed when you allow public employee unions to exist. And I’d love your thoughts on that in the first place, because I don’t know that they should be allowed to exist. I bet you’re gonna disagree with me on that. I just have a feeling given your background, but I but feel free to, you know, debate that with me.
Bernard Kerik 17:16
Well, listen, it’s one. You know, I think there’s pros and cons to the unions and their effectiveness and what they accomplish and what they don’t account public employee unions and specifically it, but I don’t think this is the majority of the problem. The majority of problem here are the laws. The laws have to change and we need senators and congressmen that were sworn to do a job. We need them to do their job. Don’t be afraid to look soft on crime. Don’t be afraid not to do your job because they’re going to irritate someone, do your job. Look at the look for one. But finally come up with with a clear cut definition of what the laws are. Take the ethics and civil civil vital And ethics violations and regulatory violations, keep them just that. Don’t let prosecutors take those things and turn it into criminal conduct. And, you know, those mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines were in that we’ve evolved into a country now where legalizing marijuana in certain states. Yet there are mandatory minimums on the books in the federal statutes. Where if you gets sentenced for dealing marijuana, the judge is mandated to sentence you to like 55 years that they have a kid in Utah was sentenced to five years ago to 55 years in prison for selling marijuana. I
Jason Hartman 18:39
wonder how big of a drug cartel Empire he was running? Did he sell a, you know, a $10 bag to somebody or?
Bernard Kerik 18:46
No, no, it was, you know, there were plants. I think they were plants. But this wasn’t a car. This wasn’t a cartel guy. I put a lot of cartel guys in prison for a long time.
Jason Hartman 18:57
Oh, I believe it wasn’t a cartel guy. That’s why I’m saying it’s pretty But I
Bernard Kerik 19:00
have to tell you, here’s what kills me. I’ve said, I’ve sat in the courtroom, guys to try to kill people I work with. They got 20 years, 20 years, this guy selling marijuana got 55. Come on. Like it makes no sense.
Jason Hartman 19:16
Yeah. See, that’s the other problem. You know, at the beginning of our talk today, we talked about how nobody can understand the law, how, you know, the concept of ignorance of the law is no excuse, but it’s impossible to understand. Because there’s too many laws. I mean, every year in the Socialist Republic of California, we’ve got like, 900 new laws that come out every January 1, it seems like in every state, it’s like that, to a lesser degree. California, of course, is, you know, big on making lots of laws. But, you know, then the state and the federal laws conflict, and nobody knows how to interpret them. You know, it’s, I mean, even if you hire these huge, massively overpriced law firms, you know, you’re gonna spend 50 grand trying to understand how to act and what the law is.
Bernard Kerik 20:00
What to do one last thing I’ll take Jason
Bernard Kerik 20:04
and I write about this in the book, I’ve pretty much concluded that you really don’t have constitutional rights, or at least the constitutional rights you think you have, if you don’t have the money to pay for him, and I and I preface that with this. I was build 100,000 150,000, sometimes 200,000 a month, but in October of 2009, when I finally pled guilty and give up, my legal bill for 30 days, was $476,000. So don’t if anybody’s out there, they think they can, you know, well, I’ll just get a good lawyer and I’ll, you know, I’ll pay a lawyer. You have to be Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, or one of those guys, if you think you’re going to fight the US criminal justice system, and get your day in court.
Jason Hartman 20:53
Wow. You know, what about holding the prosecutors accountable. I mean, we’ve seen these cases recently. Where DNA evidence, DNA evidence has exonerated people who spent 30 years of their life in prison and were innocent. And then you find that the story, you know, the case, fortunately, was reopened somehow, that the story was that, you know, the DA was really ambitious and just trying to further their career, and may well have known, the poor guy was innocent.
Bernard Kerik 21:23
And you know, what we’re seeing that increasingly now, increasingly around the whole country, so much to the point that you had a Chief Judge out and a federal judge out in the ninth district on the west coast, the basically slammed an entire United States Attorney’s Office, telling the Attorney General he didn’t want to deal with anybody in the entire office. And the problem you have here is that out of all the cases that we’re seeing where prosecutors are engaged in some kind of misconduct, whether it’s suborning perjury, you know, extorting testimony suppressing evidence, any of that stuff which is criminal or or in violation of the law, and where they’re, they’re breaking the laws to enforce it. Less than 2% of them are held accountable. According to all, every report I’ve seen, so that is a major, major problem. And as long as they have sovereign immunity, as long as they can do what they want, and nobody’s gonna hold them accountable, it’s only gonna get worse.
Jason Hartman 22:22
Wow, you know, this really harkens to kind of the police brutality issue, which, you know, I’d love to get your comments on that, by the way, it seems like that’s been increasing to where you’ve got these people that just don’t seem to care. I mean, you know, it’s just amazing. Any any comments on you know, some of the recent problems with police brutality? Or is it just more in the news now? Maybe it always existed in the numbers? It did?
Bernard Kerik 22:47
Well, I think I think there’s two issues. One, it’s, it’s more in the news, look, you know, everybody has a camera, everybody has a radio, everybody has some munications device. So we’re seeing more of that, but I think what people have to realize You have, you know, in the past 810 months, we’ve had five or six incidents that’s been publicized arrest that, you know resulted in death or is substantial injury or whatever the case may be, say there was six major incidents, keeping you got to keep this stuff in context. One, there are about 2 million people arrested every year. I mean, in New York City alone, you have 130,000 a year on average. So you have 2 million arrests, you’re looking at six different events. And then your broad brush an entire police department or a police, you know, law enforcement in general, you know, as bad corrupt racist or whatever the case may be, keep it in context, let the judicial system do its job, but you know, let grand juries investigate and do their job and let it you know, let the you know, let justice tickets court so to speak,
Jason Hartman 23:55
you make a very good point, I mean, on a on a sort of per capita basis versus The number of arrests, you know, it’s it’s relatively low for sure. And nobody should be painted with a broad brush. No institution either. But I would first and I think you’ll agree argue that there shouldn’t be so many arrests because there shouldn’t be so many things that are illegal.
Bernard Kerik 24:15
Yeah, it’s just, you know, and it’s getting worse. It’s getting worse by the year. That’s why Congress in the Senate has to do their job.
Jason Hartman 24:21
It really is. It really is. Well, the book is on Amazon, of course, with exceptional reviews, four and a half stars 50 reviews already. Do you want to give out a website? Do you have a personal website you want to give out to?
Bernard Kerik 24:32
Yeah, I want people to look at this website, American Coalition for criminal justice reform
Jason Hartman 24:37
American Coalition for criminal justice reform.
Bernard Kerik 24:40
Go ahead, right. ACC jr.org ACC jr.org. Okay. Go to the website. Look at what we’re trying to do. You know, basically the mission statement is to fight this fight where it should be fought in that in the legislature, you know, get on legislators do their jobs, change the laws? That was that’s what has to be done. And that’s sort of what I’m doing now.
Jason Hartman 25:05
Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. Very interesting. So is that your organization?
Bernard Kerik 25:10
Yeah, I found it right around the time the book came out. So it’s it’s brand new, you know, look, there’s 1000 advocacy groups in this country that focus on some sort of criminal justice or prison reform, be it rehabilitation, or transition or or education. The reality is, they’re all well intended. A lot of them doing God’s work, a lot of them doing work that the government really should be doing, but they’re not. But at the end of the day, 30 years from now, they’ll be doing the same thing if we don’t change the laws. So my intention is to take this sort of fight into and take this debate to the legislators and most importantly, and this goes back to what you said when we started the next presidential candidate. This has to be one of the top five domestic issues on the White House desk, whoever.
Jason Hartman 26:03
Yeah, I I would totally agree with you. And you know, we didn’t start out with some of the maybe stats. And we’ve got to wrap up here. But you know, America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. I mean, on a per capita basis, I hear it’s worse than North Korea.
Bernard Kerik 26:24
This is insanity. Well, listen, Jason. And here’s, here’s why this debate is important in this in all your listeners should have when they go to their legislators, so they meet their congressmen or senators, they should ask them one question. How is it possible that we, the United States of America, the free and democratic nation that promotes you know, the biggest democracy in the world? How is it possible that we are 5% of the world’s total population? But in fact, we house 25% of all the world’s prisoners. How is it possible that we have more prisoners per capita than Russia and China? How is that possible?
Jason Hartman 27:13
That is an exceptionally good question. And I’ll tell you, listeners, if you don’t think this is important, this may well and probably well, if you have, you know, a reasonably large family, affect someone in your family at some time in your their lives. I mean, this is the government has got something on all of us. And that is a scary way to live. It really is. So this is a very, very important issue. I would argue that it’s one of the most important issues in the country, every presidential candidate or every gubernatorial candidate is you know, let’s be tough on crime three strikes laws. I mean, I remember in California when the three strikes laws, you know, when that was in debate, and then that issue, but you know, turning people into criminal. It’s just you know, it seems good on the surface but it’s just it doesn’t work out that way doesn’t
Bernard Kerik 28:06
No it doesn’t. And it’s only getting worse.
Jason Hartman 28:09
Well, Bernard Kerik Commissioner, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you for doing this good work and getting the word out there. Check out the book from jailer to jailed. It’s on amazon.com with exceptionally good reviews. It’s a new release, and already getting a lot of traction. And I just really wish you the best and getting the word out about this is a very important issue. So thank you.
Bernard Kerik 28:29
Thank you, sir.
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