In the 1990s, when Rudolph Giuliani was mayor of New York and Bernard Kerik was one of his most trusted lieutenants, Lawrence Ray enjoyed his own wild ride, says the Washington Post. Ray was one of Kerik’s closest friends and the best man at his 1998 wedding. As Kerik was rising to become New York’s police commissioner, Ray was in touch with him regularly — lending him money, discussing business opportunities, and using Ray’s contacts in Russia to arrange a meeting for Giuliani with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Now, Giuliani is now a leading Republican presidential candidate. Kerik has pleaded guilty to state ethics charges and is under federal indictment. Ray, a convicted felon now in prison on a parole violation, has turned on his former friend. He has provided to state and federal authorities half a dozen boxes of e-mails, memos, faxes, financial statements, photographs, and other materials about Kerik’s alleged wrongdoing. That evidence shows that Kerik brought Ray into contact with Giuliani on a handful of occasions documented in photos and that he invoked Giuliani’s name in connection with a New Jersey construction company with alleged mob ties that is now at the heart of criminal cases. Giuliani has sought to distance himself from Kerik, his mounting legal problems and associates such as Ray. Asked about Kerik and Ray during a recent appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said: “I made a mistake in not vetting [Kerik] carefully enough. And it’s my responsibility. I should have.”
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/18/AR2007121802333.html?hpid=topnews