http://www.newsmax.com/PrintTemplate.aspx/?nodeid=635875Newsmax
Bernie Kerik: Rudy Giuliani Turned His Back on My Kids
Wednesday, April 1, 2015 04:57 PM
By: Bill Hoffmann
Bernard Kerik still feels the sting of his family's being snubbed by Rudy Giuliani.
As New York City police commissioner from 2000 to 2001, Kerik worked hand-in-hand with the then-New York City mayor to clean up the crime-ridden metropolis, and the law-and-order duo became bosom buddies.
But that relationship changed forever in 2009, when Kerik pleaded guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy, tax fraud, and lying under oath and was hit with four years in federal prison, of which he served three.
Kerik — author of the new book, "From Jailer to Jailed: My Journey from Correction and Police Commissioner to Inmate #84888-0" — told Betsy McCaughey, guest host of the "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV: "We were very close. When you live through what we did together on and in the aftermath of 9/11, you become very close. He's a friend, I love and admire him, he did enormous things for this city."
"But when I went away, he never really made contact with my family, and my concern was my kids. My two youngest daughters, they are his godchildren.
"I would have hoped he was there for them, and he wasn't. The good thing now is I'm home and I can take care of them."
Kerik's time behind bars included a horrific two-month stint in solitary confinement — a "cruel and unusual punishment" during which he began to melt down, he said.
"[It was] sixty days exactly. I hallucinated, I talked to myself. I was basically losing my mind," Kerik said.
"I was told I was in for protective custody. There's other ways to do that . . . It's devastating, it's mind-altering."
Asked by McCaughey whether solitary confinement can cause mental illness, Kerik replied, "extreme mental illness."
