American law enforcement officer, the 40th police commissioner of the City of New York who was sent to Iraq to bring law and order as Iraq’s Minister of the Interior after the fall of Saddam Hussein. In this role he is responsible for hiring and training the police force for post-Hussein Iraq.
Abandoned by his mother when he was 4, he went on to earn his black belt in Tae Kwan Do and joined the US Army as a military police office. He was assigned to Korea and trained special forces at the J. F. Kennedy Unconventional Warfare Center in Fort Bragg. After the service, with a background in international security and anti-terrorism, he became warden of the Passaic County jail in New Jersey. He took a pay cut to become a police officer in 1986, stationed in Times Square. From there he became a fearless narcotics detective, going undercover to track Cali cartel drug lords. After a 1991 drug bust, he was awarded the Police Department’s Medal of Valor for saving the life of a fellow officer. On August 21, 2000 he was appointed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as the 40th police commissioner of New York City, a post he held during the infamous 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
His journey to find his mother resulted in his 2001 book, “The Lost Son,” optioned by Miramax to be made into a movie. On December 2, 2004, President George W. Bush tapped Kerik for the cabinet position of Secretary of Homeland Security. Kerik had been working as senior vice president for the security consulting firm founded by Rudy Giuliani. On Friday, December 10, 2004, Kerik abruptly withdrew his name from nomination citing personal matters. He claimed that while he was preparing confirmation paperwork, he discovered that a former employee had “questionable immigration status” and that the related tax payments had not been made. The following week, another potential problem surfaced in the guise of a potential conflict-of-interest: Kerik received a $6.2 million windfall from exercising stock options in a stun-gun company for which he serves on the board of directors. The company does business with the Department of Homeland Security.
Link to Wikipedia biography