Spin Cycle

Steve Witkoff, a major real estate developer who owns the Woolworth building, was in no way implicated in the indictment issued last week against former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Rather, he was identified in published reports such as this as the guy who paid more than $200,000 worth of apartment rent for Kerik on the upper East Side. Kerik allegedly failed to properly report this, according to well-regarded appointees of the Bush administration who work in the U.S. Attorney's office. Just for a sense of who's who on the NYC scene, Witkoff has been in a partnership with the famous security businessman Bo Dietl, who has had extensive contacts and friendships with Republican pols in New York. In 2005, Tom Robbins of the Village Voice did a story on Witkoff's parking privileges, compliments of the NYPD. And just for papparazzi buffs, this New York Magazine story from 2004, about the famous Manhattan restaurant Rao's, has Witkoff and famed Long island investor Ken Langone at a much-coveted table reserved by Dietl, author of an autobiography about his days as a cop.

Dan Janison