Tag: bernard kerik
Hulu's Sarah Lawrence 'Cult' Series Omits Bernard Kerik's Creepy History

Hulu's Sarah Lawrence 'Cult' Series Omits Bernard Kerik's Creepy History

Hulu’s three-part documentary series Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult of Sarah Lawrence is getting a lot of attention — but perhaps not the right kind.

The upshot of the story is this: Returning citizen Larry Ray bunked with his daughter at Sarah Lawrence College when he was released from prison. He ended up gaslighting his daughter’s roommates enough that he convinced them they owed him thousands upon thousands of dollars — and that his and their lives were in danger because former New York Police Commissioner Bernard “Bernie” Kerik had a team of people stalking Ray after he turned Kerik in to the FBI for the charges that eventually led to his four-year prison sentence and cost him a Bush administration appointment as secretary of homeland security.

Ray’s stories were outlandish and false. There’s no evidence that Kerik targeted Ray, yet bright young people — students at Sarah Lawrence and Columbia University and a psychiatry resident at UCLA/USC — believed his fantasy.

It’s unfathomable to the average audience, mostly because the series doesn’t mention Kerik’s history of harassing and stalking his detractors. Knowing how Kerik operates, which the cult members did, makes it easier to understand why up-and-coming adults, those with potential to succeed in ways most people never do, fell for Ray’s histrionics.

The crime Ray described is called gang stalking, and it refers to harassment and intimidation tactics used by a group of individuals against another person or toward a smaller group of people.

Some psychiatric professionals don’t acknowledge gang stalking as an actual phenomenon; they consider it a “novel persecutory belief system” which means there’s no stalking and the alleged victim is simply paranoid or a QAnon adherent.

Formal research has been conducted into gang stalking; the few academic studies do their best not to deny the existence of the activity, but thinking one is gang-stalked nevertheless comes off as a manifestation of mental illness. One study quoted the answers to the question of why targets thought they were being stalked, and they sound decidedly kooky:

“It is part of an overt agenda to create and test mind control. They are creating weaponry tested on us.”

“I am watched (sic) for 30 years after they put in the implants to see what the implants did to me.”

“Because I refused to join their devil cult and become an operative, I became a victim. My invitation to join came at an early stage via voice-to-skull.” Voice to skull is a technology that transmits sound into the skull of a person or animals.

We shouldn’t write off these accounts of gang stalking automatically; sometimes these stories are real. This became clear recently when it was revealed that a group of eBay employees, including two members of its executive leadership team, stalked and harassed two e-commerce bloggers, Ina and David Steiner of Natick, Massachusetts. The Steiners had criticized some of the auction site’s policies, including outsized executive pay, on their blog EcommerceBytes.

As well as sending threatening messages, eBay employees sent deliveries to the Steiners’ home, including a book on surviving the death of a spouse (the implication being one of them was headed to the graveyard soon), a funeral wreath (because eBay is nothing if not socially adept when it comes to acknowledging a death in the family), a bloody pig Halloween mask, a fetal pig, and live insects. They also posed as the Steiners on Craigslist and asked anyone reading the ads to show up at their home and knock on the door for a sexual tryst. For good measure, they ordered $70 of pizza to be delivered at 4:30 a.m.

This was the best the team could come up with after James Baugh, eBay’s senior director of safety and security, showed the 1988 Anthony Michael Hall film Johnny Be Good, in which two friends send pizzas, an elephant, a stripper, an exterminator, and Hare Krishna missionaries to their football coach’s home.

The only reason why the Natick Police Department was able to unspool all the crazy — and prevent Baugh from delivering a bag of human feces, a running chainsaw ,and a rat to the Steiner’s front porch — was that David Steiner managed to get a picture of the license plate on a car that was tailing him and it was traced back to a rental agency. Seven eBay employees were criminally convicted for this gang-up, the last one just this past January.

Their narrative was completely unembellished, but if David or Ina Steiner had said to someone “I think eBay is sending me fetal pigs and pizza,” a psychiatrist would have filled them to the gills with Haldol.

Being gang-stalked by Kerik and his crew was a fiction of the odious Larry Ray, a misrepresentation that served his degradation of young minds, but these team terrorizations do happen — and they happen to many people who associate with Bernie Kerik.

It’s not like Kerik didn’t foreshadow this to all of us. According to a whistleblower report, the convicted felon gave a speech back when he was New York City's corrections commissioner that included a vow to make anyone miserable who had been disloyal to him and a warning that he had been an effective ‘hunter of men’ and would hunt down those who didn’t display sufficient fealty.

And it looks like he lived up to the promise. When he broke up with one of his mistresses, publisher Judith Regan, he called her while she was dining out with another man and described what she was eating. According to Regan, he had her followed to Los Angeles and called her to inform her he was following her son back to college in Massachusetts. Regan looked crazy, too; an associate of Regan’s described her to the New York Post as “raving” about Kerik’s stalking her.

Kerik didn’t leave these hijinks behind after he was incarcerated from 2010 to 2013.

Dara D’Addio sent the married Kerik a card while he was doing time and they started a non-physical but intimate relationship wherein she ended up essentially co-authoring his memoir. Kerik mailed her 135 letters, made 150 phone calls to her personal unlisted number, and sent her 735 emails. But when Kerik didn’t invite her to his homecoming party, she ceased contact and asked him to do the same.

Instead, Kerik started threatening and harassing her through a third party. On her blog, “Doing Time with Bernie,” D’Addio says Kerik pledged "to destroy [her] life."

It’s the same modus operandi that infused Kerik’s support for former president Donald Trump. The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the Capitol subpoenaed Kerik in November 2021 and he provided papers, among them a 22-page “strategic communications plan” he wrote, to be implemented between December 27, 2020 and January 6, 202. The plan targeted elected officials who wouldn't buy into the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Kerik wanted the home of Jocelyn Benson, Michigan's secretary of state, to be surrounded.

There’s no defense to Larry Ray’s reign over the Sarah Lawrence students — literally. The Hulu series secured the video Ray recorded of his abuse from the court file; Ray’s attorney had used it at trial in an attempt to show that her client really believed his story.

But Kerik sports a verifiable record of attacking, stalking, and seeking to destroy any critics, people who did less damage to him than Ray did. Believing Ray wasn’t as crazy as this series makes it appear.

Chandra Bozelko did time in a maximum-security facility in Connecticut. While inside she became the first incarcerated person with a regular byline in a publication outside of the facility. Her “Prison Diaries" column ran in The New Haven Independent, and she later established a blog under the same name that earned several professional awards. Her columns now appear regularly in The National Memo.

District Of Columbia Bar Counsel Urges Disbarment Of Rudy Giuliani

District Of Columbia Bar Counsel Urges Disbarment Of Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani, ex-New York mayor and personal Trump lawyer, “weaponized his law license” in a constitution-undermining gambit to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Pennsylvania, violating the terms of his law license, a D.C. Bar’s disciplinary counsel declared on Thursday.

Lead prosecuting attorney Hamilton “Phil” Fox, whose Office of Disciplinary Counsel brought forth the charges, argued that since Giuliani’s election-subverting crusade in Pennsylvania was part of a large scheme to undermine democracy, only the most severe sanction — losing his license to practice law in the jurisdiction — would be appropriate.

“I think the seriousness of misconduct calls for only one sanction, and that is the sanction of disbarment,” Fox told the D.C. Bar.

The finding, panel chairman Robert C. Bernius said, was “preliminary and nonbinding,” reached after a week of testimony from Giuliani and other witnesses, including Bernard Kerik, a former Trump adviser; Trump lawyer Christina Bobb; and disgraced ex-senior Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, who was accused of — and indicted for — sexual harassment.

“What Mr. Giuliani did was use his law license to undermine the legitimacy of a presidential election, to undermine the basic premise of the democratic system that we all live in, that has been in place since the 1800s in this country,” Fox said.

Giuliani, Fox alleged during the turbulent first hearing, spearheaded former President Trump’s nationwide effort to overturn his defeat, partaking in legal crusades — in particular, a frivolous and ultimately futile lawsuit in a Pennsylvania federal court — baselessly alleging voter fraud.

“Mr. Giuliani was responsible for filing a frivolous action asking a court in Pennsylvania to deny millions of people the right to vote,” Fox said, noting that many had marched and died for voting rights.

Giuliani, the panel’s complaint, alleged sought audacious and extraordinary relief in his Rolodex of post-election litigations in Pennsylvania and other states, including orders barring the certification of the 2020 presidential election results and “[a] declaration that Donald Trump was the winner of the legal votes cast in Pennsylvania in the November 3, 2020, election and thus the recipient of Pennsylvania’s electors.”

In a tense questioning session during the hearing, Giuliani repeated false 2020 election fraud allegations and accused the Biden administration of persecuting him.

“Mr. Giuliani has testified on several occasions that he believes there was a conspiracy. There was a conspiracy, and he was the head of it,” Fox countered.

On Thursday, Fox insisted that “Any lawyer that engages in this kind of misconduct, harming the country as this has done, has at least got to realize that his or her law license is at risk.”

He also noted that Giuliani’s election denialism was unbecoming, especially considering his “distinguished” career “twenty years ago” as a former U.S. attorney and federal prosecutor.

“It’s like there are two different people. I don’t know if something happened to Mr. Giuliani or what,” Fox said.

Giuliani took umbrage at the recommendation and — ignoring his attorney’s advice — launched into a tirade when the proceedings wrapped up, lambasting the panel for permitting Fox to present what he called a “typical, unethical, cheap attack.”

“The fact you advocate another side in a case does not make you a traitor. I have put my life up and at risk for democracy,” Giuliani barked.

I’ll put my work on democracy … up against Mr. Fox and anyone else. For that man to engage in that kind of a personal attack when there was no record of that, and for you to allow him to do that, I consider an outrage,” he added.

Giuliani’s attorney, John Levanthal, formerly a New York judge, accused the panel of putting for politicized argument and argued for a lighter disciplinary measure, noting that the Pennsylvania fraud lawsuit at issue was rejected.

The D.C. Bar will consider written statements from Fox and Giuliani before issuing its recommendation to the D.C Court of Appeals, which will then make its decision after deliberations.

This process, the Washington Post notes, could take up to a year.

Trump Pardons Reminiscent Of ‘Kleptocratic’ Regimes

Trump Pardons Reminiscent Of ‘Kleptocratic’ Regimes

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

On February 18, President Donald Trump granted presidential pardons or clemency to 11 people, ranging from former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to financial criminal Michael Milken (dubbed “The Junk Bond King”) to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik (a long-time ally of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani). Trump has drawn some praise from the left for pardoning two non-violent drug offenders, Crystal Munoz and Tynice Nichole Hall, but he reserved most his pardons for wealthy white males convicted of white-collar crimes. Sarah Chayes, author of the book Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens National Security, analyzes Trump’s recent pardon/clemency spree in an article for The Atlantic — and explains why the pardon of Blagojevich and others reminds her of the type of corruption she has studied in some developing countries.

“Donald Trump’s decision this week to pardon several Americans convicted of fraud or corruption has garnered condemnation from many in the political establishment,” Chayes explains. “The pardons were shocking to some, but to me, they were eerily familiar — straight out of the kleptocratic playbook I’ve experienced and studied in a dozen other countries.

Chayes cites Afghanistan as one of the “kleptocracies” she has studied. A “palace aide” in that country, Chayes recalls, was arrested for “extorting a bribe,” but the charge was dropped after Afghan President Hamid Karzai “made a call.”

“Corruption, I realized with a start, is not simply a matter of individual greed,” Chayes observes. “It is more like a sophisticated operating system, employed by networks whose objective is to maximize their members’ riches. And a bargain holds that system together: money and favors flow upward — from aides to presidents, for instance — and downward in return.”

The timing of Trump’s 11 pardons, according to Chayes, is especially troubling.

“Trump’s clemency came not at the end of his time in office, as is sometimes the case with such favors bestowed on cronies and swindlers, but well before that — indeed, ahead of an election in which he is running,” Chayes warns. “The gesture was not a guilty half-secret, but a promise. It was meant to show that the guarantee of impunity for choice members of America’s corrupt networks is an ongoing principle.”

Big Shot Sleazeballs Get A Break From Sleazy Trump

Big Shot Sleazeballs Get A Break From Sleazy Trump

Irving Kristol, a New York intellectual and youthful communist who became a guru of the American right, once defined a neoconservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” Thanks to Donald Trump, we have a new definition of a criminal justice reformer: a rich person who is shocked to see his felonious friends punished as though they were poor.

Sorting out the motives behind the president’s sudden slew of clemency actions for people he knows and likes is not terribly difficult. Trump is a monumental sleazeball who is comfortable with other sleazeballs, provided they are people of means and fame. It also helps if they are willing to play the role of toady because Trump likes to see people grovel before him.

Rod Blagojevich gained his favor during their time together on Trump’s reality TV show, The Celebrity Apprentice. In dismissing him from the competition, Trump said, “Governor, I have great respect for you. I have great respect for your tenacity, for the fact that you just don’t give up.” Afterward, he made a point of saying how badly he felt for the guy who tried to sell a Senate seat.

In commuting Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence, of which he has served nearly eight years, Trump lamented the heartless severity of the criminal justice system. “You have drug dealers that get not even 30 days, and they’ve killed 25 people,” claimed the president, with his usual habit of making stuff up. “They put him in jail for 18 years, and he has many years left. And I think it’s very unfair.”

What Trump didn’t mention is that the disgraced Illinois governor got off easy. After his 2011 conviction, prosecutors and the presiding judge agreed that the federal sentencing guidelines for his crimes, which mandated 360 months to life, were excessive. Judge James Zagel said a more reasonable range was 188 months to 235 months. He then imposed an even lighter sentence, 168 months.

It’s safe to assume that Blagojevich strove to ingratiate himself with Trump during their TV time. If that weren’t enough, his wife, Patti, went on Fox News repeatedly to praise Trump and plead for help, while heaping blame on Barack Obama and James Comey. She knew Trump’s triggers.

Blagojevich was in appropriate company Tuesday. Trump also pardoned former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty to eight felonies, including tax fraud, got off with a four-year sentence instead of the 30 years he could have received, and was released after serving three years.

The dirty cop, who served under Trump henchman Rudy Giuliani, responded to Trump’s decision with a maudlin lament: “Going to prison is like dying with your eyes open. Its aftermath of collateral consequences and the permanent loss of many of your civil and constitutional rights are personally devastating.”

It’s enough to break your heart. But the savage cruelty of incarceration never occurred to him when he was supervising a department that arrests hundreds of thousands of people every year so they can be prosecuted and imprisoned.

Trump also announced pardons for Michael Milken, a crooked Wall Street billionaire who did time for securities fraud, and former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., convicted of failing to report a felony in a gambling industry scandal. The president has a remarkable capacity for mercy when it comes to people blessed with wealth or power who, like him, hold the law in contempt.

This is the same guy who in 1989 took out an ad in The New York Times demanding the restoration of the death penalty in New York and suggesting it would be appropriate for the Central Park Five. Never mind that rape was not a capital crime when the state had the death penalty. Never mind that the five, after serving time, were exonerated of the infamous attack.

Trump lusted for the harshest penalty, and he didn’t agonize over whether it might be applied to the innocent. But then, the wrongly convicted boys, who ranged in age from 14 to 16, weren’t wealthy, powerful, well connected, white or in a position to kiss Trump’s feet.

Another rich, arrogant New Yorker, hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, who went to prison, was quoted by her housekeeper as saying, “We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.” Under Trump, the little people pay the full price for their crimes, and the big people get a discount.

Steve Chapman blogs at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman. Follow him on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or at https://www.facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Steve Chapman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore