The New York Police force and a source close to former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who oversaw the force during the September 11 terror attacks in 2001, report that Kerik passed away at the age of 69.
The department grieved Kerik on a Thursday post on X. Kerik defended and served New Yorkers in the NYPD for almost twenty years, including assisting in city rebuilding following 9/11. The NYPD added, “We offer his family and loved ones our most heartfelt sympathies.”
Additionally remembering Kerik on X, FBI Director Kash Patel
“Today we lament the passing of warrior, patriot, and among the most brave public servants this nation has ever seen Bernard B. Kerik. After a lonely struggle with illness, Bernie sadly passed away on May 29, 2025,” Patel stated.
President Donald Trump pardoned Kerik, a Trump friend who once spent three years in federal prison for offenses including tax fraud and lying to officials, in 2020.
In the weeks following the 2020 presidential election, Kerik teamed up former New York City mayor and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to look for proof of voter fraud.
Later, Kerik’s attorney wrote in a letter to the House select committee looking at the January 6, 2021, rebellion at the US Capitol that “Mr. Kerik was hired by former-President Donald Trump’s legal team, to act as an investigator tasked to look at claims of election fraud.”
In 1993, Kerik drove for Giuliani and served as a bodyguard. From 1998 to 2000, he oversaw the New York City Department of Corrections; thereafter, in August 2000, he was appointed Commissioner of the City Police Department.
Giuliani posted on X, “I am heartbroken over the loss of my dear friend.” “He was a decorated police officer, Corrections commissioner and NYC police commissioner during the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.”
President George W. Bush nominated him to be Homeland Security secretary in 2004; but, he later withdrew from consideration because of possible tax irregularities and the dubious immigration status of a former house servant.
Kerik entered a guilty plea to misdemeanor ethics breaches connected to gifts he acquired while running the city prison facility in 2006. He paid fines for taking gifts totaling $165,000 from a building company. Kerik entered not guilty to 16 counts, including conspiracy, tax fraud and false statements after being charged on federal corruption allegations in November 2007.
He entered a guilty plea to eight felonies in 2009, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials; he subsequently received a 48-month sentence. After completing three years, Kerik was released from federal prison for good behavior. In 2015 he published a memoir.
Kerik also actively participated in counseling Navy SEAL chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher during his 2019 military assignment.
Gallagher broke rules by posing close to a dead ISIS fighter’s body, therefore tarnishing the armed services. Then he was reduced in rank; Trump subsequently rectified this decision.
Born in Newark, New Jersey on September 4, 1955, he spent 1974–1979 in the US Army.
