NEW YORK — Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik tried to strong-arm a Staten Island man who is suing a personal protection equipment company, intimidating the plaintiff and his associates to discourage him from going public about his complaints, according to court documents.
Kerik, the former top cop who served three years in federal prison on tax fraud and false statement charges, spread lies about the businessman, Waqas Shah, telling Shah’s partners that he was a thief and a con man, falsehoods that cost him money, and damaged his reputation, according to the documents.
Kerik’s name surfaced in Shah’s $21 million lawsuit against a New York City personal protection equipment company he accused of selling him faulty and counterfeit products during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shah, 29, says he bought marked-up PPE items such as gloves, masks and at-home test kids from a company called SpecBid on behalf of his clients, which included CVS, New Jersey State Troopers, Nassau County and Vestra Labs.
Shah, in the lawsuit, says some of the equipment was counterfeit or defective.
According to Shah, he refunded those clients as a show of good faith.
The defendants include SpecBid, its founder, Christopher Cardillo, and Cardillo’s associate, Andrew Albano.
Shah said Cardillo dispatched Kerik and Albano to ruin his reputation by spreading lies to his business partners.
“Defendants Albano and Kerik told (the contact) that Plaintiff stole PPE supplies, was a scammer and a criminal, and that he stole commissions” — all of which is false, the suit alleges.
But lawyers for SpecBid and Kerik deny the faulty equipment claim, and said Kerik played no role in any sales or interaction.
The company has launched a countersuit against Shah, saying he is grasping at straws in an extortion bid. As for Kerik, they said, he is not named in the lawsuit, only in a motion seeking to name him as a defendant in the civil complaint.
“Mr. Kerik has done nothing wrong. He doesn’t have any role in this,” said Timothy Parlatore, a lawyer for Kerik.
He said Shah is “trying to use Mr. Kerik as a conduit to criminal misconduct.”
Parlatore represented Kerik in 2021 when the former police commissioner was issued a subpoena by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol invasion.
Former President Donald Trump pardoned Kerik in 2020 for felony convictions that put him behind bars for three years.
In 2010, Kerik pleaded guilty to federal charges that stemmed in part from more than $250,000 received in renovations to his Bronx apartment from a construction company suspected of having ties to organized crime, and helping the company’s bids for city contracts.
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