Kerik's costly

Isn't it time New York City stopped covering Kerik's ample rear end?

Last week, before the collapse of Bernard B. Kerik's nomination for director of homeland security, the City Law Department obtained an order from a magistrate judge that sealed Mr. Kerik's answers to questions in a federal discrimination lawsuit that could have proved embarrassing to him.

Now, after Mr. Kerik has withdrawn from consideration, and his personal and professional life has attracted news coverage, the Law Department denies that it had anything to do with sealing the records last week, and said the magistrate had taken the initiative to do so. The judge said he was responding to the city's request.

The lawsuit was brought by Eric H. DeRavin III, a former assistant deputy warden for the city's Department of Correction, who claims that while Mr. Kerik was the correction commissioner, he refused to promote Mr. DeRavin because he had disciplined Jeanette Pinero, a correction officer who was romantically involved with Mr. Kerik.

The city settled a similar lawsuit with another correction official last year for $250,000. That lawsuit involved a claim that a promotion had been denied to the official because he had taken disciplinary action against a correction officer who was close to Mr. Kerik's girlfriend.

[...]

The magistrate judge, Kevin N. Fox, said he did not want the parties to discuss what had happened in the depositions until he had a chance to review the transcripts. Judge Fox said he was acting in response to a request by city lawyers. "Their basic premise was that it was embarrassing," said Gregory Lisi, a lawyer for Mr. DeRavin.

A lawyer for the city, Georgia Pestana, said the city had tried to seal the deposition before Mr. Kerik was nominated for President Bush's cabinet, but maintained that the decision to seal the records last week was a result of "improper questions" asked by Mr. Lisi.

"Given the personal questions that they were being asked at the depositions, the federal magistrate - on his own initiative - ordered the transcripts of both Pinero and Kerik's deposition sealed," Ms. Pestana said.

And wouldn't it be interesting to find out how much Kerik ultimately cost the city, on top of his salary? I mean there's the lawsuits, the questionable dealings with contractors, the love nests...er...apartments for exhausted workers at the WTC, and on and on.

Curiously, Giuliani knew as little about all of this as Barry Bonds knew what his trainer was telling him to swallow.

But the best part of all of this is that it turns out there may never have been a nanny, the original excuse for Kerik's withdrawal. I guess it was the most palatable lie available.