NY Governor Spitzer Involved in Prostitution Ring

[2NJSons_Mom]

N.Y. governor reportedly in prostitution ring
N.Y. Times says he told advisers; statement expected shortly
 Video

 
  Spitzer allegation
  March 10: MSNBC's Savannah Guthrie talks with former N.Y. prosecutor David Schwartz about the report.
MSNBC
 

   
Spitzer linked to prostitution ring?
Delegate update
How can you want him as VP, if…?
BREAKING NEWS

updated 1 hour, 10 minutes ago
NEW YORK - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has told senior advisers that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, the New York Times reported Monday.

Spitzer was scheduled to make an announcement Monday afternoon. Spitzer officials wouldn't immediately comment on the story.

Spitzer is a first-term Democrat and former state attorney general. He is married with three children.


Details about the prostitution ring were not immediately clear.

But last week, federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed conspiracy charges against four people accusing them of running a prostitution ring that charged wealthy clients in Europe and the U.S. thousands of dollars for prostitutes.

The Web site of the Emperors Club VIP displays photographs of the prostitutes' bodies, with their faces hidden, along with 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.

The Times reported that a person with knowledge of Spitzer's role believes the governor is one of the men identified as clients in court papers.

Spitzer has built his political legacy 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 are 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.

This report will be updated as information becomes available.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23561606

[MuffyBee]

NY Governor Spitzer:

hyp·o·crite      /ˈhɪpəkrɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hip-uh-krit] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1.   a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
2.   a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.
[Origin: 1175–1225; ME ipocrite < OF < LL hypocrita < Gk hypokrits a stage actor, hence one who pretends to be what he is not, equiv. to hypokr(nesthai) (see hypocrisy) + -tés agent suffix]

—Related forms
hyp·o·crit·i·cal, adjective
hyp·o·crit·i·cal·ly, adverb

—Synonyms deceiver, dissembler, pretender, pharisee.
-----------------------------------------------------------
JMHO

[San]

Many people are happy in New York today.  I heard on the news that people on wall street were cheering.

[LouiseVargas]

This is one thing wrong with our country. Our country is so puritanical that sex can bring down a government official. Sex is natural and a part of life.

However, these same officials can send young men to war and it's ok. War is not not natural.

Sex is creative but war is deadly.

Everything is ok except for sex. Good lord, there are so many forking puritans still left in the USA.

[A's Fever]

This does not have anything to do with sex being natural and a part of life.  This has everything to do with an elected official sworn to uphold the laws of his state.  It has everything to do with a public servant who has built a career prosecuting corruption - including prostitution.  Muffy's post said it all.

[2NJSons_Mom]

This does not have anything to do with sex being natural and a part of life.  This has everything to do with an elected official sworn to uphold the laws of his state.  It has everything to do with a public servant who has built a career prosecuting corruption - including prostitution.  Muffy's post said it all.

I agree, A's Fever....give them a little power and they think they are above the law.  It's in all walks of life, unfortunately.  I read this morning that it was cash flow that prompted the probe.  Like my DH said, 'what the hell was he thinking?'....Yes, I'm sure there were many politicians many moons ago who got away with the same thing, but we all know that in our current world there is no closet to hide such things in.  It's all so very disgraceful.

[A's Fever]

This does not have anything to do with sex being natural and a part of life.  This has everything to do with an elected official sworn to uphold the laws of his state.  It has everything to do with a public servant who has built a career prosecuting corruption - including prostitution.  Muffy's post said it all.

I agree, A's Fever....give them a little power and they think they are above the law.  It's in all walks of life, unfortunately.  I read this morning that it was cash flow that prompted the probe.  Like my DH said, 'what the hell was he thinking?'....Yes, I'm sure there were many politicians many moons ago who got away with the same thing, but we all know that in our current world there is no closet to hide such things in.  It's all so very disgraceful.

I also heard cash is what prompted the investigation, possible money laundering, and of course where there is cash involved, the IRS is probably not far behind.  I wonder though what is really behind this.  Spitzer has made so many enemies along the way, one has to wonder how this all came to the attention of the authorities.

[kippy]

I just heard Spitzer was involved in these activities for the past 6 or 7 years. 

[MuffyBee]

This is one thing wrong with our country. Our country is so puritanical that sex can bring down a government official. Sex is natural and a part of life.

However, these same officials can send young men to war and it's ok. War is not not natural.

Sex is creative but war is deadly.

Everything is ok except for sex. Good lord, there are so many forking puritans still left in the USA.

The issue wasn't about Spitzer having sex.  It's about how he aggressively prosecuted people for the very same thing he was doing himself.
I am NOT by any stretch a puritan.  I don't care for people that get into positions of authority as Spitzer has and then they abuse their office.  He has busted prostitution rings and while he was doing that, he was using services himself.  That is wrong!  He needs to get out of office now.

Mar 11, 6:19 PM EDT

Spitzer Tripped Up on Laws He Enforced

By SAMANTHA GROSS and DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writers
 NEW YORK (AP) -- Eliot Spitzer knew how to catch bad guys by following the money.

As attorney general, he once broke up a call-girl ring and locked up 18 people on corruption, money-laundering and prostitution charges. He ruthlessly investigated the pay packages of Wall Street executives and was so familiar with shady financial maneuvers that he rose to become the top racketeering prosecutor in Manhattan.

But in the end, it appears that Spitzer may have been done in by the same behavior he built a career out of prosecuting.

In fact, it seems he was tripped up by some of the very financial accounting methods he used so successfully against multibillion-dollar Wall Street firms.

For one thing, the governor initially drew the attention of federal investigators because of cash payments to an account operated by a call-girl ring, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of because of the sensitivity of the case.

Banks are required to file Suspicious Activity Reports to the government whenever they observe something they fear may be a crime.

In court papers, Client 9 - identified by another law enforcement official as Spitzer - hurried to get more than $4,000 in cash to pay a call girl at a Washington hotel.

That kind of activity, repeated over time, is just the kind of thing that would set off alarm bells with a bank's compliance officer, who is trained to be on the lookout for what is called structuring or "smurfing" - a pattern of transactions aimed at hiding the nature or purpose of certain money.

Spitzer of all people should have known that, said Miami-based lawyer Gregory Baldwin, credited with coining the term "smurfing" in the 1980s as a federal prosecutor.

"I think he's done enough cases where he's charged money laundering that he would know exactly what kind of information you get from the banks. It's such a perfect example of what goes around, comes around," he said.

By the time the scandal broke this week, Spitzer's financial transactions had been monitored, his phone calls had been caught on tape, and his actions had been scrutinized by federal prosecutors. It could have been straight out of the Spitzer prosecution playbook.

Whether Spitzer thought he was smarter than the feds because of his own professional experience is, for now at least, a matter for psychologists to speculate on.

As New York attorney general, Spitzer was also familiar with how to bust up a prostitution ring.

Spitzer proudly announced on April 8, 2004, that authorities had arrested 18 people on promoting prostitution and related charges - including money laundering and falsifying business records - in an investigation of escort services in New York.

"This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure," Spitzer said at the time. "It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring, and now its owners and operators will be held accountable."

In the 2004 probe, investigators used wiretaps and other surveillance to build their case, said Vincent Romano, who defended the man accused of running the ring. Prosecutors also charged some of the defendants with enterprise corruption - a charge carrying heavier penalties than simple prostitution. No charges were brought against the ring's customers, just those accused of working for or running the service.

"It was a big splash. They had the perp walk. He caused a lot of embarrassment to a lot of people in the case to his benefit. What he put their families through at the time, he's probably experiencing now: the level of embarrassment and ridicule," Romano said.

"He's got this overzealous, mean-spirited prosecution, but behind closed doors in another state, he's doing the identical thing that he's accusing others of doing," he added. "And the other irony of it is that you've made a career off of a wiretap, and your demise is by the same prosecutorial tool."

The investigation that could spell Spitzer's ruin found that Client 9 was apparently a repeat customer with the Emperors Club VIP, a lucrative prostitution service where some call girls pulled in $5,500 an hour. The governor has not been charged, and prosecutors would not comment on the case.

A person familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press that the probe began with a referral from banks to an Internal Revenue Service office on Long Island about suspicious transactions involving accounts ultimately traced to Spitzer. The IRS studied the records and then referred the case to federal prosecutors in October. It was then assigned to the public corruption unit of the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan.

The precise details of what set off alarm bells for federal authorities are still unclear.

But authorities believe Spitzer may have spent tens of thousands of dollars, apparently transferring only personal funds - not campaign contributions or state taxpayer dollars - between accounts to pay for the prostitute service, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Another official said the amount could be as much as $80,000.

A half-million or so times every year, banks alert the federal government that a suspicious transaction has occurred. Although the public sometimes thinks it requires a transfer of $10,000 or more to attract attention, banks can label transactions suspicious even if they involve far less money, said Walter Pagano, a former IRS agent who has testified in court on white-collar crime.

Spitzer might have tried to keep his transfers below the $10,000 threshold, underestimating the scrutiny that banks give to lesser amounts.

Spitzer prosecuted cases in New York for two decades before becoming governor. From 1986 to 1992, he was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. While there, he rose to become chief of the labor racketeering unit.

While attorney general, he also went up against two men he accused of using their tour company to promote "sex tourism" in the Philippines and Thailand - first suing them in civil court and then bringing criminal charges.

One defense attorney on the case said it was politically motivated.

"He prosecuted a couple of little guys who were easy targets when he was running for governor," Daniel Hochheiser said. "The whole situation is marked by irony, hypocrisy and self-righteousness."

---

Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett contributed to this report from Washington and AP Writer Larry Neumeister contributed from New York.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SPITZER_THE_MONEY_TRAIL?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

[LouiseVargas]

So Elliot Spitzer is toast.

I read an article on AOL today that said people get more liberal as they age. This is in contrast to what people say ... that people get more conservative as they age. I have become very liberal.

I also feel that sex and prostitution should not be involved in politics in any way.

If you are hesitant to understand my position, just think about this. Sex makes the world go round. It is the very most important thing we can do to preserve the species. If not for sex, the world's population would die and that would be the end of the species.

[LouiseVargas]

STAND BY YOUR MAN

Sometimes its hard to be a woman
Giving all your love to just one man
You'll have bad times
And he'll have good times
Doing things that you don't understand
But if you love him you'll forgive him
Even though he's hard to understand
And if you love him
Oh be proud of him
'Cause after all he's just a man
Stand by your man
Give him two arms to cling to
And something warm to come to
When nights are cold and lonely
Stand by your man
And tell the world you love him
Keep giving all the love you can
Stand by your man
Stand by your man
And show the world you love him
Keep giving all the love you can
Stand by your man

[SteveDinMD]

This is one thing wrong with our country. Our country is so puritanical that sex can bring down a government official. Sex is natural and a part of life.

However, these same officials can send young men to war and it's ok. War is not not natural.

Sex is creative but war is deadly.

Everything is ok except for sex. Good lord, there are so many forking puritans still left in the USA.

Spitzer was slated for "political superstardom" less than a year ago, which sent shivers down the spines of thoughtful citizens.  Born with a diamond-encrusted spoon in his mouth (his father has over $500 Million), he was raised from birth to be the "first Jewish President of the United States."  I suppose that peculiar burden had something to do with his many personality and character defects.  At any rate, he's distinguished himself throughout his political career as a mean, arrogant, pushy, profane, self-serving, sanctimonious son-of-a-bitch, who would at the drop of a hat prosecute both innocent and guilty alike in the interest of good political theater.  This guy was BAD NEWS from day one, eagerly abusing the powers of his various public offices over the years to pursue personal vendettas and to feed his megalomania.  It truly warms my soul to see this piece of human garbage torn down from the pedestal he built for himself out of blind ambition and injustice.  It is strange, though.  The man should be serving multiple lifetimes in prison for all the evil he's wrought over his political career, yet his fall was precipitated by something so simple, so MUNDANE.  In fact, a more likable person would probably have survived.  Bill Clinton is living proof of that. 

[MuffyBee]

New York Gov. Spitzer resigns
3/12/2008 12:05 PM
By: Associated Press

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned Wednesday, effective next Monday.

His resignation is following allegations that Spitzer was a customer of a European prostitution ring.

Republicans had threatened to impeach Spitzer if he didn't resign. And on Wednesday he gave up the fight to stay in office.

"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 everytime we fall. As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family," Gov. Spitzer said.

Spitzer publicly apologized this week after authorities said he was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet a prostitute at a Washington hotel room.

As Governor, Spitzer was a super delegate who could have played a key role in the Democratic nomination for president.

He will be replaced by New York's Lt. Governor David Paterson.

He becomes New York's first African American governor.

http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=202555
http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=202555

[LouiseVargas]

I saw David Paterson on TV this morning. Wow! He surpasses Spitzer by 1,000. He was charming and calm.

[SteveDinMD]

Airfare:  ..................................... $ 500.00
AmTrak:  .................................... $  99.00
Hotel:  ....................................... $ 450.00
Room Service:  ............................ $ 197.00
"High Class" Call Girl:  ................... $4300.00
---------------------------------------------
Political Ruin & Humiliation:  .......... PRICELESS

[San]

Airfare:  ..................................... $ 500.00
AmTrak:  .................................... $  99.00
Hotel:  ....................................... $ 450.00
Room Service:  ............................ $ 197.00
"High Class" Call Girl:  ................... $4300.00
---------------------------------------------
Political Ruin & Humiliation:  .......... PRICELESS

Spitzer got what he deserved and it's been a long time coming.

[GreatOwl]

And now there is another "Escort Service" involved.  I tried to access the site via google, but you can't get in.  Looks like they have taken it down.  I was able to get into the archives through "Wayback."  This one charges between $1000 and $1600 per hour. 

I think we are paying our politicians a bit too much money.  Not only that but I get the feeling they do not have enough work to do.  Certainly too much time on their hands.