Judge in Kerik case scolds lawyers, clarifies disqualification
By JIM FITZGERALD
Associated Press Writer
3:31 PM EST, February 27, 2008
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
An angry federal judge on Wednesday scolded lawyers for both sides in the Bernard Kerik corruption case, saying the case had "begun to spin loosely out of control" after Kerik's defense attorney was thrown off the case.
Judge Stephen Robinson said attorney Kenneth Breen _ who has now appeared twice since being disqualified _ was mistaken if he thought he could have any ongoing role in the case once Kerik, a former New York Police Department commissioner, has hired a new lawyer.
Breen was removed in January after prosecutors said he might end up as a government witness and therefore had a conflict of interest.
He said at a court session last week that his understanding of the disqualification order was that he could not be the trial lawyer but he was still the counsel of record.
But the judge clarified that issue, saying Breen "cannot act as counsel in this case in any regard."
"If I wanted to say he is recused as trial counsel," he added, "I would have said that."
Kerik, a Rudy Giuliani protege whom President Bush once briefly nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security, pleaded not guilty after being indicted in November on wide-ranging charges including that he accepted $255,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment from a company that was seeking city contracts. He has been given until March 21 to find a new lawyer.
Breen told the judge he was working only on the transition.
The judge then turned on the prosecutors for publicly filing a letter asking him to elaborate on the disqualification. According to the Daily News and the New York Post, which saw the letter in a computerized file Tuesday before it was withdrawn, prosecutors Perry Carbone and Elliott Jacobson wrote that Breen might become "the power behind the throne" after another lawyer was hired.
"Breen may continue to pull all the strings, urging that certain defenses be pursued and others abandoned with his own interests, rather than his client's true interests, at heart," the letter reportedly said.
Some of the letter was blacked out.
The judge said there was no need for the letter to be written, let alone publicly filed. He said that in the future, if the lawyers want to argue about what he meant in an opinion, they should ask him rather than file letters in public.
"I assumed all counsel would behave in a way I expect them to behave," Robinson said. "Obviously I was wrong."
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