The fall of Eliot Spitzer: AKA “Client Number 9” ? [Archive] - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge

03-10-2008, 12:18 PM

The fall of Eliot Spitzer: AKA “Client Number 9” ?
Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring
By DANNY HAKIM and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
March 1, 2008

ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.

The wiretap recording, made during an investigation of a prostitution ring called Emperors Club VIP, captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

The governor learned that he had been implicated in the prostitution probe when a federal official contacted his staff last Friday, according to the person briefed on the case.

The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement. He canceled his public events today and scheduled an announcement for this afternoon after inquiries from the Times.

The governor’s aides appeared shaken, and one of them began to weep as they waited for him to make his statement at his Manhattan office. Mr. Spitzer was seen leaving his Fifth Avenue apartment just before 3 p.m. with his wife of 21 years, Silda, heading to the news conference.

The man described as Client 9 in court papers arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, Emperors Club VIP, on the night of Feb. 13. Mr. Spitzer traveled to Washington that evening, according to a person told of his travel arrangements.

The affidavit says that Client 9 met with the woman in hotel room 871 but does not identify the hotel. Mr. Spitzer stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13, according to a source who was told of his travel arrangements. Room 871 at the Mayflower Hotel that evening was registered under the another name.

Federal prosecutors rarely charge clients in prostitution cases, which are generally seen as state crimes. But the Mann Act, passed by Congress in 1910 to address prostitution, human trafficking and what was viewed at the time as immorality in general, makes it a crime to transport someone between states for the purpose of prostitution. The four defendants charged in the case unsealed last week were all charged with that crime, along with several others.

Mr. Spitzer had a difficult first year in office, rocked by a mix of scandal and legislative setbacks. In recent weeks, however, Mr. Spitzer seemed to have rebounded, with his Democratic party poised to perhaps gain control of the state Senate for the first time in four decades.

Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

“”This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. ”It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

Albany for months has been roiled by bitter fighting and accusations of dirty tricks. The Albany County district attorney is set to issue in the coming days the results of his investigation into Mr. Spitzer’s first scandal, his aides’ involvement in an effort to tarnish Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, the state’s top Republican.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/nyregion/10cnd-spitzer.html?_r=1&ex=1362888000&en=6ed828c78d717f5b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

He had been scheduled to meet with family planning activists this morning and canceled. NY politicos are “shocked.” Very sad for his family.

More about the prostitution ring, the Emperor’s Club…
Is Spitzer “Client Number 9?”

Busted: online escort ring was a real gem
Edmund Tadros
March 7, 2008 - 1:02PM

US authorities have smashed an online escort service that gave its prostitutes a one to seven diamond-ranking, with a "seven diamond" woman costing $US5500 ($5921) an hour.

Four organisers and managers of the international ring were arrested by US authorities and charged with conspiracy to violate federal prostitution laws, Newsday.com reported.

Another two of the men were also accused of attempting to launder more than $1.08 million in illicit proceeds from business.

The ring was known as the Emperor's Club VIP and offered 50 prostitutes in New York, Paris, Washington, Miami and London, The New York Times reported.

The appointments, made through an online booking service, cost between $1076 and $5921 an hour.

The United States attorney's office said the leader of the ring was Mark Brener, 62, of New Jersey, who delegated operational duties to Cecil Suwal, 23, also of New Jersey, the newspaper reported.

Suwal oversaw the ring's accounts and oversaw two booking agents, Tameka Rachelle Lewis, 32 of Brooklyn, and Tanya Hollander, 36, of Rhinebeck, New York, according to court papers quoted by the paper.

If found guilty, Lewis and Hollander face a maximum of five years in prison.

Brener and Suwal each face an additional 20 years in prison, if convicted of the money laundering charge.

The group's website, which can be access through an internet archiving service, described its services in an indirect manner.

A section of the site, Portfolio, had a selection of photos of women, all with their faces obscured.

Under each photo and mononym was a rating using diamond symbols that ranged from three to seven.

"We offer a convenient variety of services globally," the introduction to a 2007 version of the site states.

"Specializing [sic] in deluxe concierge, model introduction, spokes model and contemporary art is our expertise.

"We act for a select group of educated, refined and successful international clients who give their best in all they do and who, in return, only wish to receive the best.

"Our meticulous standards ensure that you always experience the quality you've come to expect in a world-class service when working with Emperors' Club vip.

"Best of all, our innovative social introduction / dating services allow you a luxuriously enjoyable dating / travel experience with 'no strings attached.'

"Our services are professional, reliable and luxuriously pleasurable."

"Emperors' Club vip is a positive force, intensely committed to serving our customers impeccably and honestly."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/busted-online-escort-ring-was-a-real-gem/2008/03/07/1204780030605.html

Jolie Rouge

03-10-2008, 12:23 PM

Mr. Spitzer, who abruptly this morning canceled his scheduled meetings today in Albany, alerted his staff today that he was connected to an investigation of a prostitution service that charged up to $5,500 an hour.

The New York Sun reported today that prosecutors specializing in government corruption cases are leading the investigation into the prostitution service, suggesting that the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan may have evidence that a public official hired a prostitute.

Federal prosecutors last week unsealed a criminal complaint charging four people with running Emperors Club VIP, which advertised itself as an escort service. Prosecutors say the Emperors Club employed more than 50 high-end prostitutes.

http://www.nysun.com/article/72640

Timeline…Fox reporting that Spitzer may have been in D.C. on Feb. 13, cellphone records reportedly show him contacting the Emperor’s Club that night, then appearing on Capitol Hill early the next morning.

Via the US Attorney’s Office press release, March 6, re. the Emperors’ Club bust:

MICHAEL J. GARCIA, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, MARK J. MERSHON, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and PATRICIA J. HAYNES, Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the United States Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigative Division (“IRSCID”), announced today the unsealing of charges against MARK BRENER, a/k/a “Michael,” CECIL SUWAL, a/k/a “Katie,” a/k/a “Kate,” TEMEKA RACHELLE LEWIS, a/k/a “Rachelle,” and TANYA HOLLANDER, a/k/a “Tania Hollander,” for their roles as organizers and managers of an international prostitution and money-laundering ring called the Emperors Club VIP (the “Emperors Club”). All four defendants were charged with conspiracy to violate federal prostitution statutes; BRENER and SUWAL were also charged with conspiring to launder more than $1 million in illicit proceeds from the prostitution crimes. BRENER, SUWAL, LEWIS, and HOLLANDER were all arrested this morning, and are expected in Manhattan federal court later today for their initial appearances.

According to the Complaint unsealed today:

BRENER, SUWAL, LEWIS, and HOLLANDER used the Emperors Club to arrange connections between wealthy male clients and more than 50 prostitutes in, among other places, New York, New York; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles, California; Miami, Florida; London, England; and Paris, France. The defendants charged the clients fees ranging from $1,000 to more than $5,500 per hour for prostitution services.

The Emperors Club took in more than $1 million in illicit proceeds from its international prostitution business. It accepted payment in the form of cash, American Express charges, wire transfers, and money orders. To conceal the illegal nature of the business, BRENER and SUWAL received prostitution proceeds in United States bank accounts in the names of front companies, including two accounts in the names of “QAT Consulting Group, Inc.,” and “QAT International, Inc.” The Emperors Club advertised their prostitution services in part through the use of a website that included photographs of Emperors Club prostitutes’ bodies, with their faces hidden, along with hourly rates for different categories of prostitutes. The Website ranked the prostitutes using a ranking system from one to seven diamonds, and charged hourly rates according to the assigned ranking. According to the Website, the Emperors Club charged $1,000 per hour for a three-diamond prostitute, and $3,100 per hour for a seven-diamond prostitute. The Website also offered the Emperors Club’s most valued clients “membership” in the “Icon Club,” a status which allowed the clients to access restricted areas of the Website and permitted them to schedule appointments with the most highly-ranked prostitutes, whose fees started at $5,500 per hour. According to the Website, in certain circumstances, the Emperors Club also offered its clients the opportunity to exercise a “buy-out clause,” which permitted them to purchase direct access to one of the Emperors Club’s prostitutes without having to contact the agency.

BRENER was allegedly the leader of the Emperors Club, with ultimate decision-making authority. He recruited prospective prostitutes, determined how to market the Club’s prostitutes to clients, and resolved problems that arose. SUWAL was the day-to-day organizer of the Club’s operations. She controlled the Emperors Club bank accounts, supervised the booking agents, and received applications from the prospective prostitutes.

LEWIS and HOLLANDER were allegedly booking agents for the Club. They took requests from clients and coordinated meetings with prostitutes over the telephone, and referred issues relating to payment to SUWAL.

In connection with today’s takedown, the FBI and IRS-CID executed three search warrants on locations connected to the Emperors Club’s operations and four seizure warrants for bank accounts containing proceeds of the organization’s criminal activities.

BRENER, 62, and SUWAL, 23, both reside in New Jersey; LEWIS, 32, resides in Brooklyn, New York; and HOLLANDER, 36, resides in Rhinebeck, New York. If convicted, the defendants face maximum sentences of 5 years in prison on the count charging conspiracy to violate the federal prostitution statutes; BRENER and SUWAL face additional maximum sentences of 20 years in prison on the money-laundering conspiracy count.

Mr. GARCIA praised the investigative work of the FBI and IRS-CID.

Assistant United States Attorneys BOYD M. JOHNSON III, RITA GLAVIN, and DANIEL STEIN are in charge of the prosecution. The charges contained in the Complaint are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Jolie Rouge

03-10-2008, 01:01 PM

Official: NY gov caught on wiretap
By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer
6 minutes ago

NEW YORK - A law enforcement official has told The Associated Press that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's involvement in a prostitution ring was caught on a federal wiretap.

The official says Spitzer is identified in court papers as "Client 9," and the wiretap was part of an investigation that opened in the last few months.

The official says the New York governor met last month with at least one woman in a Washington hotel. The law enforcement official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. Eliot Spitzer, accused in news reports of being involved in a prostitution ring, apologized to his family and the public on Monday at a hastily called news conference. He did not elaborate on the story.

With his wife at his side, Spitzer told reporters that he "acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family."

"I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself," he said. "I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family."

The New York Times reported earlier in the day that Spitzer told senior administration officials that he was linked to a prostitiution ring. The report cited an anonymous administration official.

The Times reported that a person with knowledge of the governor's role believes the governor is identified in court papers as a client of a prostitution ring. Four people allegedly connected to a high-end ring called the Emperors Club VIP were arrested last week.

The Web site of the Emperors Club VIP displays photographs of scantily clad women with their faces hidden. It also shows hourly rates depending on whether the prostitutes were rated with one diamond, the lowest ranking, or seven diamonds, the highest. The most highly ranked prostitutes cost $5,500 an hour, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the defendants arranged connections between wealthy men and more than 50 prostitutes in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, London and Paris.

The Times reported that the governor's travel records show he was in Washington in mid-February, and that one of the clients arranged to meet with a prostitute on the night of Feb. 13.

The case is being handled by prosecutors in the Public Corruption unit of U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia's office. Garcia spokeswoman Yusill Scribner said the office had no comment.

Around a stunned state Capitol in Albany, lawmakers and staff huddled around televisions to see the news conference. A media mob gathered outside the office of Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who would become governor if Spitzer was to resign.

Spitzer, 48, built his political reputation on rooting out corruption, including several headline-making battles with Wall Street while serving as attorney general. He stormed into the governor's office in 2006 with a historic share of the vote, vowing to continue his no-nonsense approach to fixing one of the nation's worst governments.

Time magazine had named him "Crusader of the Year" when he was attorney general and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness."

But his stint as governor has been marred by several problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear Spitzer's main Republican nemesis.

Spitzer had been expected to testify to the state Public Integrity Commission he had created to answer for his role in the scandal, in which his aides were accused of misusing state police to compile travel records to embarrass Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno.

Spitzer had served two terms as attorney general where he pursued criminal and civil cases and cracked down on misconduct and conflicts of interests on Wall Street and in corporate America. He had previously been a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, handling organized crime and white-collar crime cases.

His cases as state attorney general included a few criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and into tourism involving prostitutes.

In 2004, he was part of an investigation of an escort service in New York City that resulted in the arrest of 18 people on charges of promoting prostitution and related charges.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080310/ap_on_re_us/spitzer_prostitution;_ylt=Av_4l4FekgOKQp.dKWuKrhWs 0NUE

Jolie Rouge

03-10-2008, 08:51 PM

According to this abcnews story,http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4424507&page=1 Spitzer’s involvement with this ring was not uncovered by virtue of some happenstance over-hear on a wiretap involving a prostitution ringh. Rather, the feds targeted Spitzer himself based on a suspicious activity report filed by his bank, which noticed him paying large amounts of money in ways that it thought were evidence of criminal conduct. This report says Spitzer is suspected of “structuring” which is the intentional structuring of financial transactions involving cash in amounts less than $10,000 for the purpose of avoiding the filing of “Currency Transaction Reports” with IRS and FBI. They indicted the prostitution ring based on what they uncovered in looking into Spitzer, but the facts suggest to me that Spitzer has received a target letter indicating that he is the target of a federal criminal investigation for his conduct.

Combine this with the play between the sheets, and I think NY has a new governor by late morning tomorrow.

---

Probe into call girl ring started at IRS
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago

NEW YORK - The federal investigation into a high-end prostitution ring linked to Gov. Eliot Spitzer apparently began last year as a financial probe by the Internal Revenue Service.

The investigation into the Emperors Club VIP gathered more than 5,000 telephone calls and text messages, and more than 6,000 e-mails, along with bank records, travel and hotel records and surveillance.

But it was unclear whether Spitzer was a target from the start or whether agents came across his name by accident while amassing evidence.

Conversations were recorded about someone identified as "Client 9," including that a prostitute identified as "Kristen" should take a train from New York to Washington for a tryst on the night of Feb. 13, according to an affidavit.

A law enforcement source in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that "Client 9" was Spitzer and that he met with "Kristen" in a Washington hotel room just two hours before Valentine's Day.

Wiretaps enabled government agents to listen as the woman later told a booking agent for the ring that she had secured $4,300 in cash from her client and that she liked him. Authorities also had statements from a confidential source and an undercover officer.

The prostitution ring first came to light last week when four people with charged with running it.

It was not immediately clear whether Spitzer could face charges. Federal prosecutors have brought charges against several prostitution rings over the past two decades, but have generally not prosecuted customers.

The public-corruption unit of the U.S. attorney's office got involved after the IRS looked into a complaint of a potential violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, the government's main tool against money laundering.

Financial institutions are required to have anti-money laundering programs, which help the government catch terrorist financiers, drug lords and other criminals. Financial companies also must report suspicious financial transactions to the government.

Investigators say the Emperors Club, which is based in Brooklyn, made more than $1 million for its operators by selling the services of women whose bodies were displayed, their faces concealed, on a Web site.

The prostitutes were advertised as costing from $1,000 to $5,500 an hour.

Last Thursday, four people were arrested in the probe and charged with conspiracy to violate federal prostitution laws: Mark Brener, 62, and Cecil Suwal, 23, who live together in Cliffside Park, N.J.; Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, of Brooklyn; and Tanya Hollander, 36, of Rhinebeck, N.Y.

Brener and Suwal also were charged with conspiracy to launder more than $1 million in illicit proceeds. Lewis and Hollander were accused of arranging meetings between prostitutes and clients.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Stein said he believed the arrests shut down the ring.

The business promised clients they could pay with a wire transfer that would show up on records as QAT Consulting to make it appear to be a business transaction.

"Client 9" insisted on paying in cash.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080311/ap_on_re_us/spitzer_emperors_club;_ylt=Ahbp8BJCcqLETmB6Nn3cySG s0NUE

Jolie Rouge

03-11-2008, 01:42 PM

Did Spitzer have a taxpayer-funded bodyguard with him?
The NYSun http://www.nysun.com/article/72642

A criminal case possible under the Mann act ?

Governor Spitzer, in the wake of the disclosure that he patronized a prostitute last month, now risks criminal prosecution, legal experts say.

For now, federal prosecutors are likely launching a wide investigation into Mr. Spitzer’s finances to determine whether any public funds, property, or employees were used during any encounter between Mr. Spitzer and a prostitute, several former prosecutors say. The investigation might include establishing whether a taxpayer-funded bodyguard for Mr. Spitzer was present nearby. Law enforcement officials are also expected to try to contact any prostitutes whom Mr. Spitzer patronized, as well as interview Mr. Spitzer’s inner circle about their knowledge of his conduct, former prosecutors say.

The WSJ weighs in: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120519359147125705.html?mod=opinion_main_review_ and_outlooks

The stupendously deluded belief that the sitting Governor of New York could purchase the services of prostitutes was merely the last act of a man unable to admit either the existence of, or need for, limits. At the least, he put himself at risk of blackmail, and in turn the possible distortion of his public duties. Mr. Spitzer’s recklessness with the state’s highest elected office, though, is of a piece with his consistent excesses as Attorney General from 1999 to 2006.

He routinely used the extraordinary threat of indicting entire firms, a financial death sentence, to force the dismissal of executives, such as AIG’s Maurice “Hank” Greenberg. He routinely leaked to the press emails obtained with subpoena power to build public animosity against companies and executives. In the case of Mr. Greenberg, he went on national television to accuse the AIG founder of “illegal” behavior. Within the confines of the law itself, though, he never indicted Mr. Greenberg. Nor did he apologize.

In perhaps the incident most suggestive of Mr. Spitzer’s lack of self-restraint, the then-Attorney General personally threatened John Whitehead after the former Goldman Sachs chief published an article on this page defending Mr. Greenberg. “I will be coming after you,” Mr. Spitzer said, according to Mr. Whitehead’s account. “You will pay the price. This is only the beginning, and you will pay dearly for what you have done.”

Jack Welch, the former head of GE, said he was told to tell Ken Langone — embroiled in Mr. Spitzer’s investigation of former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso — that the AG would “put a spike through Langone’s heart.” New York Congresswoman Sue Kelly, who clashed with Mr. Spitzer in 2003, had her office put out a statement that “the attorney general acted like a thug.”

These are not merely acts of routine political rough-and-tumble. They were threats — some rhetorical, some acted upon — by one man with virtually unchecked legal powers.

Eliot Spitzer’s self-destructive inability to recognize any limit on his compulsions was never more evident than his staff’s enlistment of the New York State Police in a campaign to discredit the state’s Senate Majority Leader, Joseph Bruno. On any level, it was nuts. Somehow, Team Spitzer thought they could get by with it. In the wake of that abusive fiasco, his public approval rating plunged.

Mr. Spitzer’s dramatic fall yesterday began in the early afternoon with a posting on the Web site of the New York Times about the alleged link to prostitutes. The details in the criminal complaint about “Client-9,” who is reported to be Mr. Spitzer, will now be played for titters by the press corps. But one may ask: Where were the media before this? With a few exceptions, the media were happy to prosper from his leaks and even applaud, rather than temper, the manifestly abusive instincts of a public official.

Jolie Rouge

03-11-2008, 08:25 PM

Spitzer Spent $80 Grand on Hookers
Resigning Tomorrow?
Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 5:06:41 pm PST

Latest word on the Eliot Spitzer Apocalypse: the “progressive” Democrat spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $80,000 to get his ashes hauled.

ALBANY, N.Y. - With pressure mounting on Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign over a call-girl scandal, investigators said Tuesday he was clearly a repeat customer who spent tens of thousands of dollars — perhaps as much as $80,000 — with the high-priced prostitution service over an extended period of time.

Oh, and that bit about Spitzer wanting things that “weren’t safe?”

A law enforcement official said Tuesday the discussion had to do with Spitzer’s preference not to wear a condom and the call-girl’s insistence that he use one.

Oh well. I guess Stinky Beaumont was wrong; he told me it had something to do with a wet suit, chaps, and a pair of Mickey Mouse ears.

UPDATE at 3/11/08 5:24:07 pm:

WCBS in New York says Spitzer is going to pull out tomorrow (no pun intended): Sources:

Spitzer Resignation Expected Wednesday.

NEW YORK (CBS) — Gov. Eliot Spitzer is set to resign Wednesday, sources tell CBS 2 HD political reporter Marcia Kramer, but insiders say he’s going to use the resignation as a bargaining chip to cut a deal with federal prosecutors and he won’t step down until that happens. The talks have been going on since Tuesday morning.

The governor’s fate rests in the hands of two people: U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia and Michele Hirshman, the head of his legal defense team. The deal they cut will determine Spitzer’s future.

Criminal law experts say Spitzer will definitely have to resign the governorship and that what’s involved in the deal is key. So what’s the best that could happen to him? “No charges, absolute resignation, and contrition. I think the worst that could happen is a felony plea on one of a number of charges that they could lodge against him,” said noted criminal attorney Ronald Fischetti, who has often had to negotiate with feds on behalf of clients.

Still, Fischetti said Spitzer stands no hope of ever regaining political respect again. “I think his career politically is at an end,” he said.[/quote]

Ya think?

Jolie Rouge

03-11-2008, 09:04 PM

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Gotta Hand It To the Hookers
Posted by: Carol Platt Liebau at 3:45 PM

This news report says that Governor Spitzer frequented prostitutes for six years. Remarkable. Assuming that's so, one certainly has to give the hookers credit for their discretion -- their stories could have netted them a pretty penny from a tabloid, and it's somewhat surprising that none of them concluded that money was worth being prosecuted for a Class B misdemeanor.

Whether or not the Governor resigns -- and he may actually be trying to brazen it out -- the first ominous sign for his political future is the fact that his situation has become an object of ridicule for many.

It's never a good sign when the NY Post is running a headline contest about one's situation http://blogs.nypost.com/mb3/archives/2008/03/write_your_own.html (note to readers: some of them are raunchy); in fact, a couple of the suggestions at Politico are downright hilarious (note: some of these are raunchy, too).

My personal favorites include:

"It's 3AM
and Your Super Delegate Wasn't Sleeping!"

"NYT Headline:

Has Wiretapping Gone Too Far? [i]
Bush's FBI targets Popular Democrat over Sex; Here we go again!"[i]

The second ominous sign for Spitzer's future is the whole "hypocrisy" angle. As I've pointed out before, hypocrisy is the one charge that sexual moral relativists aren't afraid to bring, as it allows them "the luxury of condemnation without the responsibility of reaching a judgment about the morality of the underlying behavior."

Bill Clinton never claimed to be Mr. Family Values. But Eliot Spitzer prosecuted prostitution rings, even as he apparently participated in one. That may be harder for those who want to separate sexual behavior from any concept of morality to overlook. That -- and the fact that many people actually liked Bill Clinton, while far fewer seem to cherish positive feelings for Mr. Spitzer.

http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/065e98ea-1796-49cc-8539-b111849aaf98

Jolie Rouge

03-12-2008, 02:21 PM

NY Gov. Spitzer resigns amid sex scandal
By VERENA DOBNIK and MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writers
27 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace Wednesday after getting caught in a prostitution scandal that shattered his corruption-fighting, straight-arrow image, saying: "I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people's work."

Spitzer made the announcement without having finalized a plea deal with federal prosecutors, though a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said he is believed to still be negotiating one. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. "Over the course of my public life, I've insisted, I think correctly, that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself," Spitzer said at a Manhattan news conference with his wife, Silda, at his side. He left without answering questions.

Spitzer will be replaced on Monday by Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who becomes New York's first black governor. He also will be the state's first legally blind governor and its first disabled governor since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Paterson said in a statement that he was saddened, but would move forward. "It is now time for Albany to get back to work as the people of this state expect from us," he said.

Spitzer's dramatic fall began Monday when allegations surfaced that the 48-year-old father of three was the man identified in court papers as "Client-9," who spent thousands of dollars on a call girl named Kristen at a swanky Washington hotel on the night before Valentine's Day. Later details leaked from investigators alleged he was a repeat customer who spent as much as $80,000 with the high-priced prostitution service over an extended period of time.

Spitzer was more composed than he was earlier in the week, when he apologized for an undisclosed personal failing and looked pale, drawn and glassy-eyed. His wife took deep breaths as each of Spitzer's words was accompanied by a rush of camera clicks. She glanced in his direction, but they did not touch. "I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been," Spitzer said.

Spitzer's resignation came after two days of furious calls for him to step down. Republican leaders had threatened to file impeachment papers if he didn't step aside by the end of Wednesday.

The case started when banks noticed frequent cash transfers from several accounts and filed suspicious activity reports with the Internal Revenue Service, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The accounts were traced back to Spitzer, leading public corruption investigators to open an inquiry.

FBI agents recorded phone calls of Spitzer arranging a tryst and they put him under surveillance at least twice — on Jan. 26 and Feb. 13 — to confirm that a prostitute joined him at the Mayflower Hotel, according to a senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the case. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

The surveillance was necessary as part of the investigation into whether Spitzer violated the Mann Act, which makes transportation of someone across a state line for prostitution a federal crime, the official said. Authorities in Washington now are weighing whether to prosecute Spitzer for soliciting and paying for sex — a felony in the District of Columbia, the official said.

Whether U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor, who prosecutes federal and local laws in the District of Columbia, will bring charges against Spitzer likely depends on the plea deal the governor is negotiating with the government in New York, two senior law enforcement officials said.

In a statement issued after Spitzer's resignation, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said there was no deal with the fallen governor: "There is no agreement between this office and Governor Eliot Spitzer, relating to his resignation or any other matter."

Spitzer, a first-term Democrat, built his political reputation on rooting out government corruption, and made a name for himself as attorney general as crusader against shady practices and overly generous compensation. He also cracked down on prostitution.

His hard-charging ways earned him the nickname "Sheriff of Wall Street." Time magazine named him "Crusader of the Year," and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness."

As news of his resignation spread on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, some traders applauded. One trader said some firms even cracked champagne open in celebration — a ritual usually saved for if the Dow Jones industrials hit a milestone.

The square-jawed graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law was sometimes mentioned as a potential candidate for president. He rode into the governor's office with a historic margin of victory on Jan. 1, 2007, vowing to stamp out corruption in New York government in the same way that he took on Wall Street executives with a vengeance while state attorney general.

His term as governor has been fraught with problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear his main Republican nemesis. The prostitution scandal, some said, was too much to overcome.

White House press secretary Dana Perino responded to Spitzer's resignation by repeating that President Bush views it as a "sad situation" and has Spitzer and his family "in his thoughts and prayers."

Spitzer is the first New York governor to leave office in scandal since William Sulzer, who was impeached and removed in 1913 over campaign records.

Barely known outside of his Harlem political base, Paterson, the 53-year-old incoming governor, has been in New York government since his election to the state Senate in 1985. He led the Democratic caucus in the Senate before running with Spitzer.

Though legally blind, Paterson has enough sight in his right eye to walk unaided, recognize people at conversational distance and even read if text is placed close to his face. While Spitzer is renowned for his abrasive style, Paterson has built a reputation as a conciliator.

At a morning news conference, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Spitzer's chief rival, said he was moving on with the business of the state. Lawmakers were set to vote on budget bills Wednesday afternoon.

"It's stunningly tragic. Everybody is piling on, talking about what Eliot Spitzer did wrong. One of the things he did right was to ask David Paterson to be his lieutenant governor," said U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080312/ap_on_re_us/spitzer_prostitution;_ylt=AqNnPmkW6IbR00siaax3.NlH 2ocA

Jolie Rouge

03-12-2008, 02:30 PM

Text of Spitzer resignation statement
By The Associated Press
Wed Mar 12, 12:36 PM ET

Transcript of the statement Gov. Eliot Spitzer delivered on Wednesday announcing his resignation:

In the past few days I've begun to atone for my private failings with my wife, Silda, my children and my entire family. The remorse I feel will always be with me. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the love and compassion they have shown me.

From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much — the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry I did not live up to what was expected of me.

To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize. I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been, but I also know that as a public servant, I and the remarkable people with whom I worked have accomplished a great deal.

There is much more to be done and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people's work. Over the course of my public life I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct.

I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason I am resigning from the office of governor, and at Lt. Gov. David Paterson's request, the resignation will be effective on Monday, March 17, a date that he believes will permit an orderly transition.

I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings our greatest glory consists not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.

As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family, then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children.

I hope all of New York will join my prayers for my friend, David Paterson, as he embarks on his new mission and I thank the public once again for the privilege of service. Thank you very much.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080312/ap_on_re_us/spitzer_statement

Jolie Rouge

03-12-2008, 02:45 PM

Spitzer's Troubles May Hurt Clinton
Echoes of the Past Could Drown Out Campaign Messages
By Peter Baker - Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 12, 2008; Page A06

For a supporter, New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) sure hasn't done Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) any favors lately.

After all, it was Spitzer who, in the view of her advisers, caused the slide that put her where she is today, fighting from behind for the Democratic presidential nomination. A question about his proposal to let illegal immigrants get driver's licenses tripped her up in a debate in late October and ended 10 months of unquestioned dominance in the race for the nomination.

Now, his apparent involvement with a prostitution ring has not only distracted attention from her efforts to take down the front-runner, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), it has also brought back unhelpful memories of her own husband's dalliances in office. There on cable television again were pictures of Bill Clinton hugging Monica S. Lewinsky. And the image of Spitzer's wife standing painfully by his side while he acknowledged unspecified wrongdoing could not help but remind some of Hillary Clinton's own stand-by-her-man moment.

This certainly is not the way Clinton's strategists would have mapped out this week on the campaign trail. They want voters to be thinking about that 3 a.m. phone call in terms of who is ready to handle a crisis in the White House, not in terms of where an unfaithful husband might be catting around town. And, sure enough, the late-night comedians wasted little time linking the Spitzer case to the Clintons. Jay Leno joked Monday night that Spitzer's scandal "means Hillary Clinton is now only the second angriest woman in the state of New York." David Letterman offered a Top 10 List of excuses Spitzer might cite, including the No. 1 excuse: "I thought Bill Clinton legalized this years ago."

Hillary Clinton was asked about the case late Monday and, predictably enough, tried to brush it off without comment. "I obviously send my best wishes to the governor and his family," she told reporters. Still, it is hard to imagine that will be the last time she is asked about it.

Spitzer has been a bad-luck charm for Hillary Clinton up to this point. His proposal on illegal immigrant driver's licenses arguably led to the first time she was truly thrown off stride in this campaign. Fairly or not, her muddled answer at a debate in Philadelphia about whether she supported it played into the narrative promoted by opponents that she is more about calculation than principle. That led to a bad patch for her that lasted all the way through the Iowa caucuses. Her advisers pinpoint that inartful two-minute answer as the moment when the race turned.

Now Spitzer may throw her off stride again at a moment when she needs to keep her momentum going.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031102833.html

pepperpot

03-12-2008, 03:04 PM

What's worse? Prostitution or drug use, etc.?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Barry

Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr. (born March 6, 1936) is an American politician who served as the second elected mayor of the District of Columbia from 1979 to 1991, and again as the fourth mayor from 1995 to 1999. He was the target of a high-profile 1990 arrest on drug charges, which precluded him from seeking reelection that year. After he was convicted of the charges, Barry served 6 months in prison, but was elected to the D.C. council in 1992 and ultimately to the mayoralty in 1994, serving a second term from 1995 to 1999. Today, Barry serves on the Council of the District of Columbia, representing Ward Eight, which comprises Anacostia and Congress Heights.

Marion Barry married Effi Barry, his third wife, just before his first mayoral victory in 1978. The couple had one son, Christopher Barry. The Barrys divorced in 1993, but she returned to Washington and supported him in his successful bid for a city council seat in 2004. Effi died on September 6, 2007 after an 18-month battle with leukemia.

On January 18, 1990, Barry was arrested with a former girlfriend, Hazel "Rasheeda" Moore, in a sting operation at the Vista Hotel by the FBI and D.C. Police for crack cocaine use and possession. The incident – played over and over on television – showing an enraged Barry excoriating FBI informant Rasheeda Moore:

Goddamn setup . . . I'll be goddamn. ***** set me up.[5]

Barry was charged with three felony counts of perjury, 10 counts of misdemeanor drug possession, and one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to possess cocaine; however, in October 1990, he was convicted on only one charge: a single previous misdemeanor count of possessing cocaine which occurred during November of 1989. He was acquitted on one possession charge and a mistrial was declared on the 12 remaining charges.[citation needed]

As a result of his arrest and the ensuing trial, Barry was forced to step down from his position as mayor. In the midst of his campaign for a city council seat, Barry was sentenced to a six-month federal prison term in October 1990.[6]

[edit] 2005 Guilty Plea
On October 28, 2005, Barry pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charges stemming from an IRS investigation. At the mandatory drug testing at that hearing, he tested positive for cocaine and marijuana. On March 9, 2006, he was sentenced to three years probation for misdemeanor charges of failing to pay federal and local taxes, and continues to receive drug counseling.[7][8]

[edit] 2006 Traffic mishap
On September 10, 2006, Barry was stopped by Secret Service Uniformed Division police officers and was charged with driving under the influence, operating a vehicle while impaired, driving an unregistered vehicle, and misuse of temporary tags. He was acquitted on June 13, 2007 of the drunk driving charges.[9].

Spitzer may look like dog poo right now.....don't count him down and out, but Marion Barry has risen from worse more than once......btw note he was also married at the time when he was arrested in a hotel with an ex-girlfriend doing crack. What a lovely government we have....

Jolie Rouge

03-12-2008, 07:43 PM

Eliot Mess
03/11/08

He thought he was an Untouchable; but then, that is the way of those consumed by lust.

Lust for power, that is.

The media are focusing on Eliot Spitzer's most blatant and conventional moral transgressions. However, where were they when he was running roughshod over innocent victims in the business community, and wielding unbridled power as if he were a Roman emperor rather than the paid servant of a limited government?

To the liberal media, that was no "abuse of power"; in fact, they called it "crusading" and portrayed America's Robespierre as an "idealist."

Roger Donway, senior editor for The New Individualist, was way ahead of all the Johnny-come-lately's in the press corps when he subjected the then-Ayatollah General of New York State to an embarrassing ideological and political strip-search. Roger further exposed Spitzer's thuggish morals and methods in this insightful review.

Read Roger's articles and familiarize yourself with the full background of the power-hungry, sanctimonious s.o.b. who is soon to vacate his Albany governor's office in disgrace. Then ask yourself an important question:

Why it is that almost everyone has remained blind or indifferent to the real immorality in the career of Eliot Spitzer?

http://bidinotto.journalspace.com/?cmd=displaycomments&dcid=680&entryid=680

Jolie Rouge

03-12-2008, 07:45 PM

Roger further exposed Spitzer's thuggish morals and methods in this insightful review.

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1818-Robespierre_rising.aspx

Robespierre Rising
by Roger Donway

How do you take a smug child of wealth and portray his moral denunciations of self-made men as admirable? How do you relate the career of a politician who recklessly violates the rule of law and make him look like a statesman?

When Washington Post reporter Brooke Masters set out to write this thorough account of Eliot Spitzer’s career as attorney general of New York, she probably did not confront those difficulties consciously. But in Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer, Masters solves them by relying implicitly on her readers’ acceptance of two beliefs: that self-interest is evil (altruism) and that the rule of law is expendable (pragmatism). It is this aspect of the story Masters tells that I want to focus on here. For the particulars of Eliot Spitzer’s three major anti-capitalist crusades, readers should consult my article “Eliot Spitzer: Ayatollah General” in The New Individualist, April/May 2005. The details Masters adds to that history have only strengthened my conclusions, and her accounts of Spitzer’s other attacks on businessmen (such as Hank Greenberg and Richard Grasso) only reinforce my picture of the man.

Banning Self-Interest

By background, Eliot Spitzer is the very model of the “limousine liberal,” a familiar figure in New York, where Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Nelson Rockefeller all served as governor. Spitzer bodes to be the fourth in that line. Born to a real-estate tycoon, Spitzer attended the elite Horace Mann School, Princeton, and Harvard Law. Although he got a job at the prestigious Paul, Weiss law firm, Spitzer found it “unfulfilling” and left to join the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Six years later, he returned briefly to private practice and then jumped into the 1994 Democratic primary for attorney general. After finishing fourth in a four-way race, he immediately began running for the 1998 election, using his father’s money in a way so sleazy that even the leftist New York Times was reluctant to endorse him in the general election (p. 44). A year after he was sworn in, however, the cheers of the Times had begun; within two years, they had reached deafening levels. Spitzer had made it clear that he intended to use his legal powers not chiefly to prosecute obvious fraud, but to force businessmen to conform to the left’s ethical notions of “fair dealing and fair play” (p. 5).

A principal element in this notion of commercial fairness is that business must behave as though performing a public service for its customers. Spitzer does not demand asceticism of businessmen; he just wants them to look upon work as a duty (pp. 111–13). This is very similar to the medieval view of business: Each person has a job to perform; if he does it well, the people he deals with will benefit and the economy will reward him with a suitable amount of money. It is a clockwork view of the economy, and it might sound innocuous enough. Indeed, it might even sound like Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”

But what turns the “invisible hand” insight into clockwork oppression is that the latter depends upon a static concept of “doing a job.” In the Middle Ages, doing a job was performing a static and traditional role. It could be carried out as a duty, and its performance could be legally enforced. Today, beyond the lowest levels, “doing a job” is a sprint through an obstacle course of ever-shifting market forces, keeping an eye on customers and competitors, juggling supplies and sales, relying on hype and hustle, engaging in back-scratching and back-slapping, mixing pressure and pricing. Evidently, Spitzer’s self-made father knows how the world works. He reputedly won every game of Monopoly that he ever played with his children by contriving unheard-of arrangements and deals utterly at odds with the game’s official rules (p. 24). Nevertheless, since coming to office, Eliot Spitzer has used an utterly vague anti-fraud law (the Martin Act) to criminalize free-wheeling capitalism and force businessmen back into his static model of a public-service economy.

Spitzer’s medieval view became evident in his first major case, the attack on the securities industry in 2002 (pp. 73–102). His allegation was that Merrill Lynch and other firms tended to give higher recommendations to companies in which their investment-banking divisions had an interest. If they did (on page 84, Masters quietly admits it is debatable), the fact would not surprise anyone who admires the stock market as a boisterous Middle Eastern bazaar writ large. But that was not how Spitzer thought it should operate, and he decided to use the Martin Act to criminalize hype. A month after Spitzer announced his legal war on Merrill Lynch, the company’s stock had dropped by nearly one-fourth, a loss of $11 billion in value. The management of America’s most storied securities firm decided that the company was not rich enough to obtain justice and capitulated to the Spitzer creed.

[continues ...]

Jolie Rouge

03-12-2008, 07:47 PM

Dispensing with Law

The altruist premises of our culture make it easy to glamorize a politician who attacks wealth-seeking. But even given our culture’s pragmatism, it is less easy to glamorize an attorney general who violates the rule of law. And, to be fair, Masters sometimes quotes a voice opposing Spitzer’s lawlessness. But not often.

For example, nowhere in her 300-page text does Masters take a hard look at the Martin Act and what it means for liberty and the rule of law. At the point where she is building up Spitzer’s credentials to be part of the TR/FDR tradition, she merely notes that the law came out of the Progressive Era (p. 8). True enough. But she might have elucidated the full meaning of that tradition if she had quoted the description of the Martin Act given by a senior editor of Legal Times:

It empowers [New York’s attorney general] to subpoena any document from anyone doing business in the state; to keep an investigation totally secret or to make it totally public; and to choose between filing civil or criminal charges whenever he wants. People called in for questioning during Martin Act investigations do not have a right to counsel or a right against self-incrimination.

Now for the scary part: To win a case, the AG doesn’t have to prove that the defendant intended to defraud anyone, that a transaction took place, or that anyone actually was defrauded (Nicholas Thompson, “The Sword of Spitzer,” Legal Affairs, May/June 2004).

According to Masters, Spitzer hired Eric Dinallo to head his Investment Protection and Securities Bureau precisely because he had “‘really creative ideas for using the Martin Act’” (p. 50). Like threatening to destroy Merrill Lynch, as it turned out.

Masters does occasionally note that Spitzer’s team is not above rank thuggery. David Brown IV, a Harvard Law School classmate of Spitzer’s, quit Goldman Sachs to become an assistant attorney general because he felt he had “totally sold out” by pursuing wealth. His concept of idealism was well conveyed by a remark he made in New York magazine: “We will come to your house at night” (p. 258). Masters also tells the story of Steven B. Markovitz, who had engaged in “after hours” mutual-fund trading (an act whose illegality is by no means certain [pp. 149, 259]): “Under pressure to produce results, the lawyers in Spitzer’s criminal division gave Markovitz less than twenty-four hours to plead guilty. If he didn’t, they said, he would be arrested at home in front of his child and pregnant wife” (p. 160).

But the principal way in which Spitzer has abandoned the rule of law is by using the threat of legal penalties to effect the overnight regulation of industries, bargaining only with people whom he can send to jail if they balk. Since 1900, businessmen have come to accept the existence of a regulatory bureaucracy and have pinned their hopes on semi-reasonable regulators who will try to follow congressional intent, solicit public opinion, pore over legal arguments for months, and give serious weight to economic concerns. Spitzer has shown them how fragile their pitiful procedural “rights” would be in the administration of a Robespierre. Said one lawyer involved in negotiating a settlement of the research-analyst case: “‘[It] flushed down the toilet notice and comment; it also flushed down the toilet regulatory history’” (p. 127). And that is how Spitzer likes it. When national regulators said the securities industry was complaining of the damage Spitzer’s proposed reforms would wreak: “‘My response was, so what, who cares? You’re the ones who are supposed to tell them what to do’” (p. 97).

As for charges that he should not be engaged in legislation and regulation at all, never mind his reckless methods, Spitzer has one reply: He has been forced to legislate and regulate through his power to imprison because those who have the power to legislate and regulate are not using it. Thus, the solution to his exceeding his authority is: Give him the authority to do what he wants. That imposing his own concept of virtue may be wrong seems beyond his comprehension. He views arguments emanating from pro-capitalist think tanks as hired-gun rationalizations for lawless selfishness. “‘The financing behind the [libertarian] Cato Institute and the Federalist society is a group that doesn’t want and never wanted any government enforcement of the rules’” (p. 269).

Fighting Back

Spitzer’s accession to the governorship of New York is now considered a foregone conclusion, and he claims to be looking no further. But in 2012 he will be only 53. No wonder, then, that “his supporters and even his campaign rhetoric suggested a higher ultimate goal” (p. 290). Were he to be elected president, Spitzer might well become this country’s fourth powerful anti-capitalist president, joining TR, FDR, and LBJ. Indeed, given his coming of age in the post-sixties era, he might well be the most anti-capitalist of them all.

But this ascension is anything but a foregone conclusion. Not everyone targeted by Spitzer has fallen victim to him, and Masters inadvertently reveals his weak point. She quotes what a gun-control lawyer said in a post-mortem on Spitzer’s total failure to revamp the gun-manufacturing industry: When it comes to Wall Street, Spitzer “‘goes in and he finds out all kinds of things and they [his targets] all fold because you can’t have that kind of adverse publicity. . . . [However,] he goes in with the gun makers . . . and they don’t care what the New York attorney general thinks’” (p. 70).

Exactly.

Spitzer fails when his victims spurn his moral premises. He cannot control businessmen through “public shamings” when the businessmen are not ashamed.

And that is why people opposed to Spitzer need to attack the moral foundations of his career. Not his publicity-seeking. Not his vaulting ambition. Not even his procedural missteps. Spitzer’s opponents must uphold the morality and legality of pursuing one’s self-interest. To stop the rise of this American Robespierre will require a moral confidence equal to his own.

Jolie Rouge

03-12-2008, 07:54 PM

What's worse? Prostitution or drug use, etc.?

Are not both of these felonies ?

Are not both of these men charged with upholding the law ?

pepperpot

03-15-2008, 08:57 AM

Are not both of these felonies ?

Are not both of these men charged with upholding the law ?

:agree.....for others that is....:slap

Jolie Rouge

03-28-2008, 08:07 PM

DA's report: Spitzer behind dirty tricks
By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer
40 minutes ago

ALBANY, N.Y. - A prosecutor said Friday that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer may have lied when he told investigators he wasn't deeply involved in a plot that used a Republican rival's travel records in an effort to embarrass him. He added that Spitzer could have been indicted had he not resigned in disgrace in a prostitution scandal.

Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares said in a report that Spitzer's former communications director, Darren Dopp, recounted conversations and e-mails that indicated Spitzer directly ordered him in a profanity-laced exchange to give a reporter records regarding Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno's use of state aircraft on days he attended Republican fundraisers.

Dopp was provided immunity for his testimony in Soares' second investigation of the 2007 scandal. Dopp had faced a possible perjury charge because a statement released by the Spitzer administration about the scandal differed from his own testimony, but Soares found Friday that he did not commit perjury.

"If Dopp's testimony is credited," Soares' report states, "then former Governor Spitzer's answers were not truthful. Accordingly, we intended to present these conflicting accounts to a grand jury."

But Spitzer's resignation this month, after he was implicated in an investigation of a prostitution ring, made it impossible to file a charge him because it meant he was no longer a public employee, the report said.

Spitzer, like Soares a Democrat, never testified under oath in the travel-records scandal. Instead, he was bound by a statute that required public officials to answer questions truthfully or face a charge of obstructing justice.

A spokeswoman for Spitzer declined to comment Friday.

Bruno called the report proof that Spitzer lied to the public and was obsessed with a "political hit job" on him. "The scandal was a blatant abuse of government power," he said.

Publicly, Spitzer has said he had only cursory knowledge of the reporter's request for travel records and that his aides were overzealous. Spitzer apologized to Bruno for the aides' behavior.

In his testimony last year to Soares, Spitzer flatly denied that he directed the gathering of any documents concerning Bruno's flights and didn't order the release of any documents to the news media.

The report, however paints a picture of the former Democratic governor as "spitting mad" at Bruno. Dopp's testimony claims that Spitzer not only timed the release of the records for political advantage, but reviewed them personally at least twice and repeatedly called Dopp at home to check on progress of the news stories about the documents.

In September, Soares issued a report saying no one in the Spitzer administration acted improperly and that there was no evidence of a plot to discredit Bruno. Two aides argued they were following orders to fulfill media requests seeking records. Spitzer disciplined them both.

But Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found two top Spitzer aides misused state police to compile records of Bruno's use of state aircraft.

Soares revisited the case after a statement provided for him by Spitzer administration lawyers seemed to conflict with Dopp's testimony to the state Public Integrity Commission, which is also investigating. Dopp was questioned by Soares during the second investigation.

Friday's report said that at first, in May 2007, Spitzer just wanted to "monitor the situation" after Dopp said a reporter asked for Bruno's flight records. But in June, when Bruno was blocking Spitzer's initiatives in the Legislature, top Spitzer aides discussed providing the flight records to "the feds" after they read in the newspaper that Bruno was being investigated by the FBI for business dealings.

Dopp said that on June 25 or June 26, governor's Secretary Rich Baum told him, "Eliot wants you to release the records."

Dopp said he went into Spitzer's office to make sure. "According to Dopp, the governor replied, `Yeah, do it,'" the Soares report said.

"Dopp asked Spitzer: `Are you sure?'" noting Bruno would be angry.

Dopp said Spitzer then used vulgarities to describe Bruno and ordered Dopp to "shove it up his (expletive) with a red-hot poker."

"He was drinking a cup of coffee," Dopp told investigators, "as he was saying it, he was like spitting a little bit. He was spitting mad."

The report stated: "When asked whether he considered the governor telling him to release the records was a directive, Dopp stated that, `You couldn't mistake that based upon the words that were used.'"

The travel-records story ran in the Albany Times Union. Spitzer later suspended Dopp and transferred the other aide involved, William Howard, out of the executive chamber. Dopp would eventually leave the governor's office, after serving Spitzer for eight years as attorney general and a year as governor. Dopp had been an Associated Press reporter from 1985 to 1987.

The scandal led to gridlock in Albany and eroded Spitzer's once record-high popularity, which was shattered when the prostitution scandal broke this month. Some testimony and records still haven't been released, protected by Spitzer's executive privilege.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080329/ap_on_re_us/ny_political_feud;_ylt=AmYjwF.VVFzQYupihBwZb.xH2oc A

Ex-NY Gov. Spitzer dodged DA probe by resigning
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080328/us_nm/newyork_spitzer_dc;_ylt=AgUcoyoJwYEP1jRFvr_PM_hH2o cA

Jolie Rouge

07-01-2008, 03:39 PM

What’s Eliot Spitzer up to now?

The capitalist-bashing former NY AG
and Dem Luv Guv is starting a “vulture fund.”

Fitting, don’t you think?

Spitzer Mulls Starting Vulture Fund
Tells Unions of Plan for Real Estate
By JACOB GERSHMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 10, 2008

Eliot Spitzer, in his first big business venture since he was shamed out of office by a prostitution scandal, is shopping around a plan to start a vulture fund that would scoop up distressed real estate assets around the country, revamp them, and flip the properties for a profit.

Late last month, the former governor of New York gathered a group of high-level Washington, D.C.-based labor union officials in a conference room at the headquarters of his father's real estate business in Manhattan and pitched them his idea for starting such a fund, a source said.

During the meeting, Mr. Spitzer expressed relief that he was no longer burdened with the frustrations of being governor, according to the source. And, in contrast to his repentant resignation speech that he delivered beside his tearful wife, Silda Wall, he took a more relaxed view of his indiscretions.

He has told friends and associates that he is consoled by passersby who stop him on the city sidewalks and tell him that sex is "no big deal" and that the disclosure that he frequented prostitutes was distorted out of proportion, the source said. Europeans, the former governor has noted, have been especially supportive of him and perplexed by the fallout from the scandal.

In the half-hour meeting, Mr. Spitzer told the officials that he was determined to take his ailing father's real estate company to "the next level," the source said. Mr. Spitzer said he would lay out his business plan in greater detail at a later date, and would ask the labor officials to consider investing pension fund money under their control.

Mr. Spitzer is moving aggressively to occupy a niche created by the credit crunch, the subprime mortgage crisis, a surge in foreclosures, and a declining real estate market. He is looking to mine for riches in projects that banks are no longer willing to finance.

Distressed real estate funds — also known as "vulture" or, more euphemistically, "opportunity" funds — typically promise returns of more than 20% and are active in Florida, Nevada, and Southern California. They rely heavily on pension and university endowment investments. Mr. Spitzer is said to be envisioning projects valued between $100 million and $500 million.

Mr. Spitzer, who would be competing against much larger investors, such as the Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group, is seeking to leverage the reputation of his father's business as a successful manager of real estate assets. In approaching the national labor unions, he is also trading on the goodwill he earned in that sector during his days as attorney general, when he was known as the scourge of Wall Street.

In doing so, Mr. Spitzer, who turns 49 today, is attempting to breathe life into the real estate empire built by his octogenarian father, Bernard Spitzer, whose real estate holdings, which include the Corinthian apartment building on East 38th Street, have not changed significantly since the early 1990s.

Mr. Spitzer works out of the Crown Building at 730 Fifth Ave., a 26-story structure his father and two other real estate investors bought in 1991 (in what turned out to be a highly lucrative investment). Playboy Enterprises leases commercial space in the building.

Speaking to the union leaders, Mr. Spitzer noted that the conference room in which they were sitting would have been his personal office had he entered his father's business after graduating from college, a source said.

Mr. Spitzer's entrepreneurial activities are the latest indication that the former governor is plunging himself more deeply into a life of business, rather than following, for instance, the model set by a former British war minister, John Profumo, who spent the rest of his life volunteering for a charity after he was caught in a scandal involving a prostitute and a Russian spy.

Mr. Spitzer, who resigned in March just days after it emerged that he had hired high-priced call girls while serving as governor, is quickly making the transition to real estate power player even as his legal standing is in limbo.

While two women who operated the call girl ring connected to Mr. Spitzer have pleaded guilty to money laundering and prostitution-related charges, federal prosecutors have not given any signal as to whether they will charge Mr. Spitzer with a crime.

Mr. Spitzer, who has not spoken substantively to the press since he resigned, did not return a call for comment.

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/spitzer-mulls-starting-vulture-fund/79666/