Giuliani partners in crime band up for government contracts

[moodforaday]

A.k.a: a band of criminals helps other criminals bilk millions from yet another gang of crooks.

This thread is sinking, while the recent WaPo article has too much of the good stuff to let it fall through the cracks:

WaPo: Famously loyal, Giuliani chose as his partners longtime associates, including a former police commissioner later convicted of corruption, a former FBI executive who admitted taking artifacts from Ground Zero and a former Roman Catholic priest accused of covering up sexual abuse in the church.

Interesting they don't name names. The "former police commissioner" is Bernie Kerik, ever the pal of the Mob, but who are the other two?


WaPo: In December 2002, Giuliani Partners agreed to a lucrative contract to represent Florida-based security startup Seisint Inc., created by a close friend, Hank Asher. Seisint's data-mining product -- code-named Matrix -- caught the attention of federal and state authorities after Sept. 11 because the firm said that by searching through billions of public records, it could identify potential terrorists.

Shades of Indira Singh and PTech, anyone?

WaPo: But Asher harbored a secret: In the early 1980s, he had smuggled kilos of cocaine from Colombia into Florida aboard his private jet. Asher was never charged with a crime but disclosed his past to federal agents later in life when he helped an effort to rid a Florida community of drug smugglers.
(...)
The Bush administration committed $12 million in grants for Matrix, and more than half a dozen states joined.
(...)
Giuliani would later give a public defense of Asher, without mentioning he had been paid by Asher's company.
"I have a great admiration for what he's doing," Giuliani told a Florida newspaper in January 2004. "People do a lot of things in life. It's a question of what you can do to make up for it, and Hank has done a lot."

So what would I get for smoking weed in NYC under mayor Giuliani? What would I get for dealing? Would I also be eligible for admiration from Mr Mayor?

The full WaPo article is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/12/AR2007051201270_pf.html