Trump Pardons

Chronology

“As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani promoted Bernard Kerik to important positions in his administration. Kerik’s friend Larry Ray later became a witness against Kerik.”The Washington Post

1980s: “According to someone who was there, a capo in the Genovese family, Salvatore “Sally Dogs” Lombardi, even attended his [Larry Ray] wedding in 1988…Larry [Ray] worked on Wall Street in the early ’80s despite not having a college degree. He later became a consultant, helping clients in the insurance, construction, finance, and gambling industries. He claimed to be a partner in a popular Italian restaurant, where he held fund-raisers for politicians, including one for Patrick Kennedy in 1993. He also co-owned Malibu, a nightclub in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, and took meetings with Peter Gatien in an effort to buy Gatien’s Manhattan nightclubs, including Tunnel and the Limelight. “He would say, ‘Look, you have to meet [New Jersey representative] Bob Franks. He’s a great guy,’ ” Frank DiTommaso, [Interstate] who ran a large construction firm, once testified. DiTommaso, who was friends with Larry, eventually hired him to help make introductions. “Here he is, dealing with government officials, very credible and prominent politicians. He introduced me to Marine generals and colonels.” The Cut

1993: “When Mr. Giuliani ran for mayor in 1993, Mr. Kerik organized his security detail of off-duty officers, reserving the weekend shift for himself.” New York Times

1995: “In 1995, Larry met a young NYPD detective named Bernie Kerik. Kerik had recently been promoted from being Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s driver to the director of the New York City Department of Correction’s investigations division.” The Cut.

[“In 1995, for instance, Edward Garafola, a soldier in the Gambino crime family, sought to extort money from Mr. Sater. Mr. Sater, in turn, got Ernest Montevecchi, a soldier in the Genovese crime family, to persuade Mr. Garafola to back off, according to the indictment.” NY Times]

“Another in 1997 from a major international bank concerned possible real estate transactions in New York and Russia. The investigative files give no indication whether any of the deals notified him when Giuliani planned to appoint Kerik in 1997 to New York’s gambling regulatory commission. Ray had an application for a license to run a riverboat, according to the documents he turned over to police. “Kerik was real excited about that. He wanted me to purchase the ship and do the retro-fitting,” Ray said. “It was supposed to be offshore. He would get 50-percent. We would set up a company to own the ship.” That plan never materialized.” The Washington Post

Dec. 16, 1997: “As a favor to Kerik, Ray arranges for Giuliani to meet former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in New York.”The Washington Post

[“Larry was happy to further Kerik’s professional advancement. While in Russia, Larry had befriended Pavel Palazhchenko, Mikhail Gorbachev’s longtime interpreter. In 1997, Larry and his friends played host to Gorbachev when the statesman visited New York, arranging security and transportation (in Larry’s own car). When Gorbachev made a stop in Los Angeles, Larry even orchestrated a meeting between Gorbachev and Robert De Niro. (De Niro remembers thinking it was odd that “this guy” was the one who’d arranged the meeting.) As a favor to Kerik, Larry also arranged for Gorbachev to sit down with Giuliani. Photographs of the meeting made national headlines. One month later, Giuliani appointed Kerik commissioner of the Department of Correction.” (The Cut).]

Jan. 1, 1998: “Kerik is appointed commissioner of corrections for New York.”The Washington Post

Pump and Dump Stock Scheme operated out of Trump’s 44 Wall St.; Others Convicted: Felix Sater and the Five Families of NYC in March 2000, sentenced 2003

“The materials Ray provided to law enforcement also suggest that he and Kerik discussed a range of private business proposals. Kerik sent and received numerous faxes from his city office addressed to Ray about several possible deals, including one in 1998 titled “Proposed Acquisition of Sugar From Brazil for Russia.” The Washington Post

“Mr. Giuliani has routinely met loyalty with loyalty, standing by political allies and friends in their darkest hours. Giuliani Partners, for example, his consulting firm, employs a high school friend, Msgr. Alan Placa, despite allegations that he sexually molested young men years ago.” NY Times

Late 1998: “Construction firm Interstate Industrial hires Ray as a security consultant. “a New Jersey construction company that had been wrestling with allegations of ties to a New York crime family. Kerik, then commissioner of New York’s corrections department, offered to help Interstate contest those allegations so it could win contracts from Giuliani’s administration, according to the indictment. At the same time, Kerik accepted $255,000 in illegal gifts from Interstate that included extensive renovations to one of his apartments, prosecutors say in court records. The Giuliani administration never approved Interstate for the contracts”The Washington Post

Nov. 1, 1998: Ray is best man at Kerik’s wedding.The Washington Post

Nov. 18, 1998: Ray faxes Kerik a copy of Interstate’s application to do business in New York City.The Washington Post

“A federal complaint brought against him [Felix Sater & Larry Ray] in a 1998 money laundering and stock manipulation case was filed in secret and remains under seal. A subsequent indictment in March 2000 stemming from the same investigation described Mr. Sater as an “unindicted co-conspirator” and a key figure in a $40 million scheme involving 19 stockbrokers and organized crime figures from four Mafia families. But a onetime friend, Gennady Klotsman, who is known as Gene and who was accused with Mr. Sater as a co-conspirator, contends that they both pleaded guilty in 1998, and that Mr. Sater began cooperating with the authorities. Prosecutors are unwilling to discuss either the 1998 complaint or the 2000 indictment…Mr. Sater, Mr. Klotsman, Mr. Lauria and their partners gained control in 1993 of White Rock Partners, which later changed its name to State Street Capital Markets…Mr. Klotsman, who grew up with Mr. Sater, now lives in a $600-a-month apartment in Moscow. In an interview, he said he was paying the American government $625 a month in restitution for the $40 million lost by investors. He questioned whether Mr. Sater was paying a dime.” NY Times

January 1999: “A year later, the mayor asked him to drop by Gracie Mansion. The two men sat upstairs and shared a bottle of red wine, a gift to the mayor from Nelson Mandela. Mr. Giuliani said he planned to appoint Mr. Kerik as first deputy correction commissioner. Mr. Kerik, who wrote of this in his autobiography, “The Lost Son,” was taken aback; he was a year removed from being a police detective. “Mayor, I appreciate your confidence in me, I really do,” he said. “But I ran a jail. One jail. Rikers is like 10 jails.” Just do it, the mayor replied. Mr. Kerik followed Mr. Giuliani downstairs to a dimly lighted room. There waited Mr. Giuliani’s boyhood chum Peter J. Powers, who was first deputy mayor, and other aides. One by one, they pulled Mr. Kerik close and kissed his cheek. “I wonder if he noticed how much becoming part of his team resembled becoming part of a mafia family,” Mr. Kerik wrote. “I was being made.” New York Times

“April 29, 1999: Kerik alerts Ray that the mayor has appointed a relatives, Raymond Casey, to a city agency Interstate is trying to influence. On April 29, 1999, Kerik sent Ray an e-mail titled “Important!!!!!!!!!!!!” that said that the mayor had appointed Raymond Casey, one of his relatives, to a top job at the Trade Waste Commission that Interstate was trying to influence. The e-mail was turned over to authorities and The Post. “Rudy’s nephew in the Tradewaste has been appointed from Inspector General to Deputy Commissioner of Investigations,” Kerik wrote. “That’s how he’s aware of everything going on. He’s overseeing all of the investigations. That could be bad for me at the moment but I think overall good for us.” In the same e-mail, Kerik lamented his problems paying for his new apartment. He also mentioned that his brother Donald was looking for a new job. Within months, Interstate started renovations at Kerik’s apartment and hired Donald. Interstate President Frank DiTommaso wrote to the city’s Trade Waste agency to announce his new employee. “The day to day operations of Interstate Materials Corp. have been taken over by Mr. Don Kerik,” the note said. “Don is a fine individual and will continue to provide your agency with full cooperation.” The Washington Post

May 11, 1999: Kerik asks Ray if he can spare $2,000 to $2,500.The Washington Post

July 1999: “Kerik meets with Casey and a city investigator to discuss concerns about Interstate’s alleged mob ties; Kerik later says he vouched for the company. “In July 1999, Bernard Kerik arranged a meeting with Casey and a New York Department of Investigations agent at a Manhattan restaurant to discuss Interstate, according to the recent federal indictment of Kerik. Kerik “questioned” city officials’ concerns about the company having alleged mob ties. “I put my reputation and integrity on the line” for the company, he wrote in an e-mail to the company’s owners after that meeting. Kerik arranged a subsequent meeting between city officials and an Interstate representative later that summer in his Department of Corrections office, the indictment states. As Kerik pressed Interstate’s case, he asked Ray for money. “I’ve got to take care of those things we talked about a few weeks ago,” he said. “If possible, I need about 2 to 2,5 to take care of it,” Kerik wrote in an e-mail in May 1999 asking for $2,000 to $2,500. A few weeks later, Kerik sought more. “If possible I don’t want to spend any of the down payment for the apartment and I’ve got a few things that I’ve got to pay off,” he wrote to Ray. “Can we spare 2500 to get me by until something else comes up.”The Washington Post

“Kerik helped introduce Larry to some of his law-enforcement contacts, including an FBI agent named Gary Uher. Larry claimed he could provide Uher with information on his Mafia contacts, so Uher took on Larry as an informant. The two began meeting three or four times a week. One of the most promising bits of evidence Larry claimed to have was information on a pump-and-dump stock scheme operated in part by a capo in the Gambino family, Eddie Garafola. Larry had told Uher he could provide information about the scheme, so when Larry later said that Garafola had put a hit out on him, Uher believed him. According to FBI reports, the agency paid approximately $10,000 for a security system to be installed in Larry’s home. The reports, however, paint Larry as an unreliable informant who dangled the prospect of critical evidence only to later obfuscate. After a few years of working with Larry, Uher realized that Larry had used his role as an FBI informant as a cover for his own involvement in Garafola’s scheme.”(The Cut).]

March 2000: “Ray is indicted on charges of securities fraud...Kerik and Ray began parting ways in 2000 around the time Ray was indicted on charges of securities fraud in connection with the mob stock scheme. The indictment surprised Ray and his lawyers because Ray had worked with the FBI as a confidential informant to make the case, according to FBI documents. The documents show that the FBI eventually came to believe that Ray had not told them everything about his own role in the scheme.”The Washington Post

[“In March 2000, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn indicted 19 defendants, including Larry, for their involvement in the securities-fraud scheme. Larry was charged with agreeing to pay a $100,000 bribe to the executive of a bond brokerage on behalf of Garafola. Prosecutors acknowledged that Larry had provided useful background information to the FBI but nothing that had helped the investigation in any significant way. In fact, they argued, Larry had repeatedly lied to the FBI.  In asking for leniency, Larry pointed to his efforts to help the U.S. government in other capacities. In addition to his work in Kosovo, he said Uher had once dispatched him to Russia to lure now-infamous Trump crony Felix Sater, an unindicted co-conspirator in the pump-and-dump scheme, back to the United States. Larry also claimed to have recovered Stinger missiles off the black market for the U.S. government, something Sater has also reportedly done.”(The Cut).]

Pump and Dump Stock Scheme operated out of Trump’s 44 Wall St.; Others Convicted: Felix Sater and the Five Families of NYC: 

April 21, 2000: Kerik becomes Giuliani’s police commissioner.

November 2001: Larry Ray to Kerick email “I am sorry I have to burden you with any of this at all. But I need you and my family needs you. I have done my best to keep you out of it all along. … As a friend I was mindful of the sensitivity of your position. … Now I need you as a friend to do nothing more than be willing to state the truth as to the things that you do know.” Kerik’s stinging reply arrived the next morning. “In the event that I am called to testify, I must tell you that my recollection of the events is not consistent with what you remember. And this would have a severely negative impact on your credibility.”The Washington Post

April 9, 2003: “Ray eventually pleaded guilty to the securities charge in 2003 and was sentenced to house arrest and probation.”The Washington Post

Felix Sater joined his Sands Point, Long Island, neighbor, Tevfik Arif (“former economist for the Soviet government who built a chain of five luxury hotels in Turkey and Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union”), in Trump’s development company, Bayrock NY Times

“Dec. 3, 2004: President Bush nominates Kerik to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Larry Ray began providing New York authorities with evidence of Bernard Kerik’s wrongdoing in December 2004 when the former New York police commissioner was nominated for the post of homeland security secretary. The nomination was pulled within days because of questions about Kerik’s background.”The Washington Post

“Dec. 10, 2004: Kerik withdraws his name after Ray goes public with an allegation about Kerik’s dealings [with Interstate].”The Washington Post

2005: Larry Ray divorce & custody battle “Ray’s New Jersey home was raided by police in connection with the dispute. Eventually, the case led to Ray’s probation violation — he was accused of ignoring a restraining order to stay away from his children — and he was sent to prison. Ray became convinced that Kerik was exerting influence behind the scenes to damage his reputation with police and prosecutors in New Jersey. He said that a local prosecutor told him “the party line is to get Larry Ray.” That prosecutor, Michele D’Onofrio, concluded that the police search of Ray’s home was illegal and recently was interviewed by the FBI about the search, according to court records.  Ray filed a civil rights lawsuit against local authorities about the search. His 18-year-old daughter hired Florida lawyer Mark Gelman, a specialist in child sex abuse cases, to prepare a lawsuit that was filed last Friday alleging that the couple’s children were abused by his estranged wife and some of her relatives. A lawyer for the wife has said that Ray has repeatedly made such allegations and that they have always been determined to be unfounded. Messages left for Ray’s ex-wife were not returned. The ugliness of the New Jersey custody case is what prompted Baumgarten, whose law license was recently restored after it was revoked over billing issues, to reach out to Segarra, the former Giuliani deputy mayor. “It just sickened me what was going on against the children,” said Baumgarten, a retired brigadier general who was a deputy mayor in New York. He was credited during the 1970s with overseeing a law enforcement effort to clean up the vice-infested midtown area.”The Washington Post

“June 30, 2006: Kerik pleads guilty to taking illegal gifts from Interstate. Last spring, Ray’s friend Sidney Baumgarten, a New York lawyer, told former deputy mayor and longtime Giuliani ally Ninfa Segarra that Ray was embroiled in a bitter divorce and an even worse custody dispute over his two daughters. Baumgarten said that he told Segarra that Ray possessed “damaging” information about Giuliani but that he would not go public with his allegations if he could receive help with the mounting legal troubles. “That was the implied quid pro quo,” Baumgarten recalled in an interview with The Post, saying the conversation stemmed solely from his desire to help Ray’s children in the custody case. The following day, Baumgarten received an e-mail from Segarra advising Ray to call an acquaintance of hers, a “political heavyweight” lawyer who could assist Ray in the custody dispute in New Jersey. “For now I would ask not to identify me as the referral,” Segarra wrote in the March 5 e-mail obtained by The Post. In an interview, Segarra said she recommended the lawyer for Ray after talking with Baumgarten but did not consult with the Giuliani campaign or anyone else. She said she was not motivated by Baumgarten’s offer that Ray would keep silent. “Baumgarten described to me a very nasty child custody battle,” said Segarra, who spoke with The Post at the request of Giuliani aides. “He may have implied something like that and I emphatically told him I didn’t want to get involved. Because the welfare of children was at issue, I recommended a well-respected lawyer that was capable of dealing with the child custody issue in New Jersey.” The Washington Post

“Mr. Kerik, who declined to speak about his troubles, now faces possible indictment on a range of federal felony charges, including perhaps tax evasion and bribery, stemming in part from his acceptance of $165,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment paid for by Interstate. In June 2006, he pleaded guilty in the Bronx to state misdemeanor charges relating to the same renovations.” New York Times 

2007: Larry Ray violated parole in 2003 conviction of the pump and dump scheme, and was found in the friend/landlord’s apartment on East 93rd St, Chen. (The Cut).

December 17, 2007: Felix Sater “Outed” by the New York Times:  Real Estate Executive With Hand in Trump Projects Rose From Tangled Past By Charles V. Bagli 

2010: Larry Ray moved in with his daughter and the Sarah Lawrence sex trafficking and forced labor charges ending in Pinehurst, NC, began.

January 2015: Trial for Chen’s 2014 eviction of Larry Ray- Claudia’s testimony: “The first time I heard his name [Larry Ray] mentioned,” she answered, “I was probably 9 years old.” Over the course of her hourlong testimony, Claudia laid out an elaborate conspiracy tracing back through three generations of her family. She testified that, as a child, she’d overheard her grandfather talking about Larry “making trouble.” Even then, she said, she knew Kerik and Giuliani were somehow involved. As Claudia neared college age, she testified, Larry’s mother had contacted Claudia’s mother and told her to send Claudia to Sarah Lawrence “in order to hurt Larry and Talia.”  Claudia went on to testify that after she enrolled at Sarah Lawrence, her family began receiving money from Kerik and those working with him. Kerik ordered Claudia to poison Larry using arsenic, cyanide, mercury, silver, and lead. (Kerik denies any involvement in a conspiracy against his former friend. “Larry Ray is a psychotic con man who has victimized every friend he’s ever had,” he says. “It’s been close to 20 years since I last heard from him, yet his reign of terror continues.”) Eventually, her list of targets expanded to include Talia, Isabella, and others. “Bernie’s really happy with your performance,” Larry’s mother had said, according to Claudia’s testimony.” (The Cut).

September 2015: “nine months after the trial, Larry was in the lobby of the Hudson Hotel with Claudia and Santos when DiTommaso saw him. Surveillance footage shows DiTommaso approach Larry and begin to violently beat him while Claudia and Santos try to stop him.”The Cut

February 11, 2020: Larry Ray pleaded not guilty