I'm STILL angry at this. A whopper "fail" of our media!!
Last April the loathsome Lawrence Ray was convicted of 17 counts of sex trafficking, extortion and forced labor. And worse. Much worse.
After he was released from prison for security fraud he moved into his daughter's on-campus housing where he learned intimate details about her roommate's private lives, vulnerabilities, and mental health struggles, made them feel worthless, denigrated them, directing them to have sex with each other and with strangers, forcing one of the women into prostitution. They descended into self-hatred, self-harm, and attempts at suicide for which he took sadistic pleasure in their pain and suffering. They had no way out. If you saw the court video of his behavior from his trial, you saw what a sadistic shit this vile son-of-a-bitch is.
That was then. This is now.
Last Friday (20th) in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Lawrence Ray was sentenced to 60 years in prison. (Note: Prosecutors wanted life in prison.)
All of this was reported in major media. But what got me mad as hell is what the media left out!!! The friends and associates of loathsome bastard, Lawrence Ray!
In particular - Bernie "Bada Bing" Kerik! And HIS associates!!
They could have added details like this:
Kerik and Lawrence Ray had become friends in the mid-1990s. The two men worked out and rode motorcycles together.
How close?
In 1998 Lawrence Ray was the best man at Kerik's wedding, to the woman he would ultimately and frequently commit random acts of adultery. Ray and another friend even wrote checks to cover parts of Kerik’s wedding and reception.
The following year (1999), then-New York City corrections commissioner and high school dropout, Kerik, wanted to renovate his new apartment in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Through Lawrence Ray, Kerik befriended a man who ran a construction company with his brother. The company hired Lawrence Ray - wait for it - its security director! Bernie later got caught accepting $200,000+ from the company, a company he was helping to pursue business with the city of NY. The state of New Jersey found this out when the company tried to get construction OK's for casinos in Atlantic City, and reported to NYC what they found out - that the company has long had ties to organized crime! You know who also had ties to New York's organized crime? Kerik's long-time friend, Rudy Giuliani! Rudy's father used to break legs for the mob!
To make this story oh-so-perfect, the company also gave Bernie's brother, Donald, an $85,000-a-year job at the same time Bernie was using his influence within New York City government to help the company win a license to operate on Staten Island.
After his 'service' as correction commissioner in the 90's, Kerik served as NYC police commissioner hand-picked for the job by his friend, longtime ally, and son of a mob enforcer, Rudy Giuliani.
Fun fact: Bernie got caught regularly schtupping an also-married city Corrections Officer in a private apartment donated by grateful New Yorkers as a place of rest for the police and firemen digging through the rubble of 9/11 searching for the dead - while he was also schtupping Judith Regan who published his shitty autobiography! 'Cuz - "Values!"
So what happened when New York investigated?
Kerik fucking clammed up! He took the Fifth eight times! (OK; give him some points!! That's far fewer than Trump and his sons!)
He refused to answer questions like, whether the company ever gave him money or anything of value.
Or, whether the company ever asked him to take any action on behalf of the company.
And that was when the W. Bush administration finally pulled Kerik from becoming - as Giuliani wanted him to become - the first Secretary of Homeland Security! Yeah. THAT!
Giuliani stuck by Kerik publicly in the months after, but later ended their business partnership. But not their personal relationship.
After his federal conviction and having served three of his four-years in the federal slammer, Giuliani's law firm - hired Kerik!
See how that works?
In 2020 Trump, a man also intimate with NY and NJ mobsters, gave Kerik a pardon for his federal crimes.
In January of 2021, Kerik was an adviser to Trump and attended the Jan. 5th meeting at the Willard Hotel with Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Roger Stone, the "Manhattan Madam" Kristin Davis, Ali Alexander, Christina Bobb, Joe Oltmann, Russell Ramsland, James Waldron, the Proud boys, the 1st Amendment Praetorians, Tommy Tuberville, Steve Bannon, and who-the-hell-else-have-I-left-out!
Two years later Kerik was subpoenaed by the Justice Department as part of an investigation into Donald Trump and the attempted Coup d'Etat of 06 January 2021.
ALL THAT was left out of the reporting last week. All of those people are Republicans connected to Trump and the top of the Republican Party of "Traditional Family Values!" Ray was the story. But those connections should have been brought out.
All this is what the media left out. All this story needed was a connection to Jeffry Epstein.
= new reply since forum marked as read
can't have the party of rampant criminality depicted accurately. Too much money at stake--gotta keep the relentless exploiters and grifters shoveling money upwards.
p.s. Great post, although disheartening.
