By KATI CORNELL, AUSTIN FENNER and LEONARD GREENE

Last Updated: 6:34 AM, October 22, 2009

Posted: 3:24 AM, October 22, 2009

Big, bad Bernard Kerik wants to bunk with the regular Joes -- even if they're accused killers, rapists and muggers.

The disgraced former city police commissioner yesterday refused to ask to be separated from the general population as he spent his first full day in the Westchester County jail. He's been accused of trying to taint the jury pool in his upcoming federal corruption case.

So jail officials made the decision for him -- and hauled him anyway into a segregated wing reserved for cops, judges and other at-risk inmates.

Kerik once was also head of the city's jails, and in 2004 was briefly a nominee to oversee the US Department of Homeland Security.

The 54-year-old, fallen law-enforcement hero -- now inmate No. 210-717 -- was issued a standard orange jumpsuit and put in a single-bed cell at the Valhalla facility.

He was visited for two hours yesterday morning by his son, Joe, a Newark SWAT-team member, and an unidentified older man. They left without commenting.

Kerik, a one-time close confidant of former President George W. Bush and ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, will now be spending his days waking for breakfast at 6:45 a.m., spending an hour in recreation beginning at 11 a.m. and then going to bed at 10:45 p.m. Dinner yesterday included meat loaf, corn and sliced potato skins.

His lawyers said they are working on an appeal of a judge's ruling Tuesday that revoked his bail and landed him in the pen while he awaits trial.

Federal Judge Stephen Robinson revoked Kerik's $500,000 bail after he said the ex-commish leaked confidential information about his case to a "shady" lawyer friend, who then gave it to the Washington Times and Internet blogs.

Court papers filed by prosecutors yesterday say New Jersey lawyer Anthony Modaferri -- who's running Kerik's legal defense fund -- spread "inflammatory and erroneous claims" that the city Department of Investigation intimidated officials to lie about Kerik before a grand jury.

According to court papers, Modaferri also accused feds of pressuring witnesses and intervening in a civil suit filed by former DOI Inspector General Michael Caruso to keep Kerik from obtaining "exculpatory evidence" to help his case.

A spokeswoman for the US Attorney's Office declined to comment.

Trojan Hart, who was visiting his son at the jail yesterday, said himself he was locked up on Rikers Island when Kerik was New York City's correction commissioner.

Hart said he found it ironic that he was now the one coming and going while Kerik was in a cell.

"Now the tables have turned," Hart said."''"

Although Kerik is technically a federal inmate, he will likely stay at the jail in Valhalla to avoid trips back and forth into Manhattan, an official said. His trial is to be held in White Plains.

Kerik is accused of trading city contracts for renovations to his Bronx apartment. He also allegedly lied about the conflict to the White House when it was vetting him for secretary of homeland security.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday.