Spitzer Resigns; Felled by Sex Scandal

[Trainspotter]

Spitzer Resigns; Felled by Sex Scandal

 

 

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Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Reporters waiting outside Gov. Eliot

Spitzer’s apartment at Fifth Avenue

for an announcement that never came.

[/float]Gov. Eliot Spitzer, reeling from revelations that he had been a client of a prostitution ring, announced his resignation today at his headquarters in Manhattan.

 

Mr. Spitzer’s resignation is to be effective Monday, and Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson is to be sworn in to replace him.

 

In the two days since news of Mr. Spitzer’s involvement in the prostitution ring surfaced, he has been engaged in an intense legal and family debate about whether to resign or, as aides said his wife was urging, to stay on.

 

Mr. Spitzer, who had been holed up at his apartment at Fifth Avenue and 79th Street in Manhattan since issuing an apology on Tuesday, emerged at about 11:15 a.m. Wednesday with his wife by his side and got into a black S.U.V., which headed for his headquarters on Third Avenue as news helicopters followed above.

 

On Tuesday, as Mr. Spitzer, a first-term Democrat, contemplated his next move, the New York political world remained in a suspended state, with cries — even from fellow Democrats — growing louder for him to step down.

 

In one of the last and desperate rounds of the end game, a top Spitzer administration official reached out to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s staff on Tuesday to see if the governor could avoid an impeachment vote. But the prospects were grim.

 

Republicans have pledged to try to have Mr. Spitzer impeached and only 34 of the more than 100 Democrats in the Assembly would be needed for the matter to be referred to the Senate for an impeachment trial. It was clear during the discussions that 34 or more Democrats were almost certain to vote against the governor.

 

That outcome would have been a dire for the governor, because his top political rival, Senate majority leader Joseph L. Bruno, leads the Senate, where a trial would have been held.

 

“An impeachment proceeding would force Democrats to either abandon him or defend him,” said one leading Democrat. “They would abandon him.”

 

Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, said Tuesday that Mr. Spitzer should do “what’s best for his family,” but stopped short of calling on the governor to step down. “It is now up to the governor to make a determination that’s best for his family. I pray for his children.” When asked what Mr. Silver thought was best for the Spitzer family, he did not respond.

 

Mr. Silver offered a few details of his conversation with Mr. Spitzer on Tuesday afternoon before the governor briefly spoke to the public. “I said to him then and I say it now, he’s got to take care of his family first and be concerned about them. I told him that we will carry on in the legislative process that moves the budget forward. We intend to pass our budget tomorrow. I hope the Senate will do the same.”

 

Mr. Paterson said on Tuesday that he had not heard from Mr. Spitzer since about noon on Monday, and did not know whether he would soon be sworn in as the state’s 55th governor.

 

“The governor called me yesterday,” said Mr. Paterson, who was driven to the Capitol on Tuesday and pondered going inside before deciding to avoid the swarm of journalists. “He said he didn’t resign for a number of reasons, and he didn’t go into the reasons, and that’s the last I’ve heard from him.”

 

Asked whether preparations for a transition were under way, the lieutenant governor said: “No one has talked to me about his resignation, and no one has talked to me about a transition.”

 

At a televised news conference on Wednesday morning, Mr. Bruno, the Senate majority leader who would become the lieutenant governor if Mr. Paterson replaces Mr. Spitzer, told reporters that he had not spoken with Mr. Spitzer or any of his top aides about the impending resignation.

 

“No one has contacted me officially,” he said. “We are following the reports as you are. But in the meantime, I am staying with our plan to pass a budget, talk to the speaker, and we’re going to go public in a real way on Monday.”

 

Mr. Bruno, a Republican who clashed frequently with Mr. Spitzer, said he was praying for the governor and his family and urged all New Yorkers to do so as well.

 

On Tuesday, Mr. Spitzer cut himself off from all but the most senior members of his staff. His lawyer, Michele Hirschman, was reaching out to federal prosecutors to try to strike a deal in hopes of avoiding charges.

 

Close aides to the governor suggested on Tuesday that the mood in the Spitzer home was tense, with the governor’s wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, recommending that he not step down, but they cautioned that the situation could change at any time.

 

The revelation of Mr. Spitzer’s involvement with the high-end prostitution ring gripped the nation, and more than 70 reporters and photographers clustered outside the governor’s Upper East Side high-rise on Tuesday, separated from the building by a metal barricade erected by the police.

 

Three helicopters whirred overhead as tourists atop passing double-decker buses snapped pictures of the scene.

 

Mr. Spitzer’s patronage of the prostitution agency, Emperor’s Club V.I.P., came to light after prosecutors charged four people with operating the service. They said the governor was intercepted on a federal wiretap arranging payments and an encounter with a prostitute in a Washington hotel room last month. The affidavit referred to a Client 9 and did not identify Mr. Spitzer by name, but law enforcement officials said that Client 9 was the governor.

 

Investigators reviewing the scope of Mr. Spitzer’s involvement with prostitutes said on Tuesday that just in the past year he had had more than a half-dozen meetings with them and had paid tens of thousands of dollars to the ring, one law enforcement official said.

 

A person with knowledge of the service’s operations said that Mr. Spitzer had begun meeting with the prostitutes of the Emperor’s Club about eight months ago and had had encounters in Dallas as well as Washington. A law enforcement official said Mr. Spitzer also had an encounter with a prostitute in Florida. On some trips of several days’ duration, Mr. Spitzer scheduled more than one visit with a prostitute, this person said.

 

In his Washington visit with the prostitute, Mr. Spitzer is said to have used an alias to book one of his rooms at the Mayflower Hotel, the name of a close friend, the financier George Fox.

 

Mr. Fox released a statement yesterday that said he was surprised and disappointed by Mr. Spitzer’s misuse of his name. “There is absolutely no connection between Mr. Fox and the governor’s alleged activity beyond the unauthorized use of his name,” the statement said.

 

Authorities were seeking the testimony of the woman known as Kristen, who worked for the Emperor’s Club service and is identified in the criminal complaint as having met with the governor last month in Washington, people briefed on the case said.

 

The woman is said in the complaint to have typically charged $1,000 an hour.

 

After her encounter with Client 9, the prostitute told the booker for the agency that it had gone well, and the booker told her that he, in an apparent reference to Client 9, sometimes asked the women “to do things that, like, you might not think were safe.”

 

Two of the defendants from the escort service were still being held in federal custody on Tuesday. Two other employees, who have been released, declined to discuss their work for what has become a highly publicized business.

 

“We are too early in this complex investigation for me to make any comment,” said Marc Agnifilo, the lawyer representing one of the bookers, Temeka Lewis.

 

Mr. Spitzer, who has three daughters, offered a general apology to his family and the people of New York on Monday, but did not address the specific allegations. He said he needed to repair his relationship with his family and decide what was best for the state, but he declined to take questions and his appearance lasted just over a minute.

 

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong,” the governor said. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.

 

“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”

 

Despite his expression of contrition, the drumbeat of calls for his resignation became louder, as some Democrats joined in.

 

Asked if Mr. Spitzer should resign, Darrel J. Aubertine, a newly elected Democratic senator from upstate New York, who got a big boost from the governor’s political operation in his recent campaign, responded: “If the facts remain the way they are, yes.”

 

He added, “I’m just disappointed, terribly disappointed.”

 

Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a freshman Democrat in a swing district north of New York City, expressed sympathy for the governor’s family, but said his staying in office would be untenable.

 

“If these serious allegations are true, the governor will have no choice but to resign,” she said.

 

In Albany, the business of government gave way to fevered whispers and speculation about what happens next. And no one seemed to know.

 

“It’s sort of a theater of the absurd,” said Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat. “Everybody is still a bit shellshocked.”

 

As the governor pondered his decision, Assemblyman James N. Tedisco, a Republican and the Assembly minority leader, said he would begin moving to have Mr. Spitzer impeached if the governor did not step down within 48 hours.

[DOB2RTO]

Good for his overpaying, hooker buying, Giuliani face structured and bald spot, beak for a nose, Vulcan eared, alien looking sorry ass. He should be lucky his wife gave him 3 kids. He should be grateful for that. I hope they do him as he did others. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. McGreevey cheated on his wife. Rowland inappropriately used funds and went to prison. By the end I hope to say Spitzer did both. For now he just cheated. Let's see if he gets jail, prison, house arrest, or probation time (aka a criminal record).

[Locomotion69]

LOL@DOB,there is a God out there,hehe. I feel sorry for the "escorts" that had to provide their services to him,I know where he could get a job....at the haunted castle at Six Flags Great Adventure Amusement park,lmao.

[DOB2RTO]

LOL@DOB,there is a God out there,hehe. I feel sorry for the "escorts" that had to provide their services to him,I know where he could get a job....at the haunted castle at Six Flags Great Adventure Amusement park,lmao.

 

That or if they remake the Gremlins, he would get a part as one.

 

I think he did a part in a movie already:

 

[Pablo M 201]

Sad, but oh well. If he wasn't going to quit out himself, he would taken out alot worse than just quiting on own will.

[error46146]

oh well at least he was sorry, you should give him credit for saying sorry and not hiding it up

[DOB2RTO]

oh well at least he was sorry, you should give him credit for saying sorry and not hiding it up

 

Never give anyone with power like that credit for being sorry. You will learn as you get older that they are only sorry they got caught, sorry that they might go to jail or prison, sorry they might be prosecuted, sorry that their wives will clean them out, sorry that their pride and dignity is in shatters, and sorry it got out to the public and their enemies have ammo against them. They are never sorry of what they did. They liked what they did, cause it gave them pleasure to do it.

[East New York]

Never give anyone with power like that credit for being sorry. You will learn as you get older that they are only sorry they got caught, sorry that they might go to jail or prison, sorry they might be prosecuted, sorry that their wives will clean them out, sorry that their pride and dignity is in shatters, and sorry it got out to the public and their enemies have ammo against them. They are never sorry of what they did. They liked what they did, cause it gave them pleasure to do it.

 

Right, I don't think he was sorry. Just sorry that he got caught. And the people he should have been apologizing to was his family! But not only that, I think he should be prosecuted. After all, he pushed for a law to make prostitution offences raised from a 90 day mis. to a 1 yr mis. I bet he wishes it was still 90 days now!

[Locomotion69]

Anybody with any common sense wouldn't feel sorry for that millionaires son....makes you wonder about all the things that he did illegally and never got caught......he is a disgrace..he will fade into the sunset like Giuliani and never to be seen or heard from again.

[Coolbreezing]

18 Arrested in Lucrative Prostitution Ring Out of Staten Island (Guess who busted them)

NY Times ^ | April 8, 2004 | WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

 

Posted on 03/11/2008 10:28:12 AM PDT by McGruff

 

''This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,'' the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, who oversees the task force, said in a statement. ''It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring, and now its owners and operators will be held accountable.'' Investigators with the task force came across the ring while looking into the activities of a Gambino crime family gambling operation, the law enforcement official said. They had wiretapped a Gambino-linked social club on Fingerboard Road in Staten Island as part of that inquiry and saw the prostitution ring's leader, Frank Farella, 44, of Staten Island, visiting at the club, the official said.

 

Mr. Spitzer double standard. You can't have it both ways .....you either against prostitution or for it. Prostitution is prostitution whether it is of a higher class or low class. It's just upset me to see even in prostitution they is still prejudice. When I looked at the website, I didn't see not even one black chick on it. What is that all about.....

[Locomotion69]

Coolbreezing: C'mon you are smarter than that,whores comes in all different races,are you trying to imply that rich men only want white "escorts". There are plenty of only black escort services out there.

 

Ex Governor Spitzer loses his security detail right? So say if somebody wants to give him a beating somewhere out in public he has nobody to protect him right? Correct me if I am wrong and as for that whore she wanted money and fame,she got it,lets see how long it will take for her to be in rehab,hopefully she will overdose and not even make it to there. Also isn't she facing tax evasion charges? She sure as hell didn't report her illegal income,wtf? Do something illegal in this country and get rewarded....

[DOB2RTO]

Coolbreezing: C'mon you are smarter than that,whores comes in all different races,are you trying to imply that rich men only want white "escorts". There are plenty of only black escort services out there.

 

True, but do they make what their Caucasian counterparts make? I haven't heard of any who do. Don't really want to hear of any who do either. I don't think one race wants to take pride in who's woman makes the most selling her a$$. A toot is a toot, and all I can picture is a beaten and battered.....well you know, no matter the race. And the odor that must.....I mean I don't think a woman suppose to be "opened" that much.

 

Oh, and here is another toot. No one wants to touch this one though:

 

[Locomotion69]

LOL..what a surprise to hear that the escorts brother was busted for heroin possession to distribute,going to be sentenced next month,was currently on probation for intent to distribute in a school zone,typical rich white trash kids,nothing unusual here.

[DOB2RTO]

LOL..what a surprise to hear that the escorts brother was busted for heroin possession to distribute,going to be sentenced next month,was currently on probation for intent to distribute in a school zone,typical rich white trash kids,nothing unusual here.

 

Goes to show money doesn't mean class......

[sebbieprops]

I think there's a reason why he's waiting until Monday to step down. He's probably going to use these last few days in office to pardon the family members of any judges that might have to preside over his case, if he ends up having to go to court.

[Coolbreezing]

My respond to this prostitution issue was intended to make your lol. My view on prostitution may be different from some of you. I don't particularly believed that prostitution should be illegal. Those of you who seem to think that prostitution is immoral, you need to ask yourself what does immoral means. An act that is immoral to me is an act that is force on someone without his or her consent or an act that is intended to deceive someone else. In the case of prostitution has long as it doesn't involve children to me it is just a contract between two adults who has agreed to perform sex for money. The only people left out in this contract is uncle Sam that is why its illegal. It is true not all women will succumb themselves to it but there is a degree of economic starvation involve. Beside not all women can be a prostitute you must be sexy and pretty which make you in demand. Haven't you realize most pretty girls have had more than one partner. Well, when they is 50 guys chasing one girl that put her in high demands. Which mean she is less tolerant for BS. Now you notice I didn't say all women who are pretty behave this way. Because those pretty women who came from a capable family may not behave similarly.

 

Prostitution is a choice that has nothing to do with values and dignity. It is simply survival. Those who criticize them have fail to realize that not all of us are capable to succeed in school and have that good job that enable us to pay our bills at ears. The truth of the matter, it is not the case for most women. Most of them have kids their must look after and that job their have does not pay them well enough to pay all the bills. Therefore, they look for another alternative and those are sometime another job, stripping or prostitution. After all what's the sense of them staying with you if all you want is to get laid and move on. Those who are in financial difficulties find it beneficial to sell it then to give it away for free. WELL, GENTLEMEN WELCOME TO THE REAL LIFE.

[DOB2RTO]

My respond to this prostitution issue was intended to make your lol. My view on prostitution may be different from some of you. I don't particularly believed that prostitution should be illegal. Those of you who seem to think that prostitution is immoral, you need to ask yourself what does immoral means. An act that is immoral to me is an act that is force on someone without his or her consent or an act that is intended to deceive someone else. In the case of prostitution has long as it doesn't involve children to me it is just a contract between two adults who has agreed to perform sex for money. The only people left out in this contract is uncle Sam that is why its illegal. It is true not all women will succumb themselves to it but there is a degree of economic starvation involve. Beside not all women can be a prostitute you must be sexy and pretty which make you in demand. Haven't you realize most pretty girls have had more than one partner. Well, when they is 50 guys chasing one girl that put her in high demands. Which mean she is less tolerant for BS. Now you notice I didn't say all women who are pretty behave this way. Because those pretty women who came from a capable family may not behave similarly.

 

Prostitution is a choice that has nothing to do with values and dignity. It is simply survival. Those who criticize them have fail to realize that not all of us are capable to succeed in school and have that good job that enable us to pay our bills at ears. The truth of the matter, it is not the case for most women. Most of them have kids their must look after and that job their have does not pay them well enough to pay all the bills. Therefore, they look for another alternative and those are sometime another job, stripping or prostitution. After all what's the sense of them staying with you if all you want is to get laid and move on. Those who are in financial difficulties find it beneficial to sell it then to give it away for free. WELL, GENTLEMEN WELCOME TO THE REAL LIFE.

 

 

Nevada legalized it, and I don't have a problem with it. It is the oldest profession in the world. My problem is with people who want to criminalize it, but get caught in the act. Besides if you pay for a date (movie and food), always give your girlfriend money, buy flowers, rings, etc..., you are paying for some nookie. You stop, she most likely will take her kitty cat to some other guy who will "take care of her".

[Coolbreezing]

You right DOB ...and I think Rhode Island too legalized it. Yes for sure you can't have conflicting opinion on this issue ......having double standard makes you an hypocrite. As far as relationship is concern, they is really no parallel between prostitution and relationships. Maybe back in the days when women had limited rights but not now days. Some women makes more money than men ....I think the gap is approaching an equilibrium. Some statistic predicted by the end of 2010 they will be more women professionals who will make just as much money as men. Therefore, professional women who are in a relationship are looking for companionship, partnership not a men to pay their ways. .....Someone whose going to be their for them. Someone their can love and have a child for. Believe it or not ...not all women are looking to get married. Those that own assets feel the same way as men who own assets. Lets not forget that companionship now days come in all different form .....which I don't have a problem with by the way. What ever fit you best is OK by me.

 

None the less, there are alway exceptions, you will find women who are totally depend on a man for survival .....it all depends on the quality you seek in a woman. If you only go by looks ....then you going in blindly. You must have standard and know what qualities are important to you.

[East New York]

Nevada legalized it, and I don't have a problem with it. It is the oldest profession in the world. My problem is with people who want to criminalize it, but get caught in the act. Besides if you pay for a date (movie and food), always give your girlfriend money, buy flowers, rings, etc..., you are paying for some nookie. You stop, she most likely will take her kitty cat to some other guy who will "take care of her".

 

You got that right! Just about every man has paid for some in one way or another, at one point in time. But what is really not in the light is all the women who pay for the guys too! "It ain't trickin' if you got it!"

[sebbieprops]

I take the libertarian view with regard to this. What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms isn't up to the government to regulate.

[Coolbreezing]

You got that right! Just about every man has paid for some in one way or another, at one point in time. But what is really not in the light is all the women who pay for the guys too! "It ain't trickin' if you got it!"

 

The only reason why you see it that way is because your main intention is to get laid. You are not really looking for true companionship. Paying for the movies or buying a girl a gift does not equal paying for sex. When you buy someone something out of good faith, you should not expect the person to return the juster. Otherwise, it's not out of good faith. A person like you get hart broken when you don't get what you want for your investment. Don't take this the wrong way, this is not about you ....there are many of us that think that way. I use to think like that when I was 18 years old but now I'm 35 ... I've grown up.

 

Women who pays for a guy to have access to certain goods is nothing new. Specially now days ...it's a two way street out there. If she does it because she expect something back in return ....it's for the wrong reason. The only time to expect something back in return is when you entered a verbal agreement with someone to pay as a return for a favor.

 

As you can see, it is not what you do that matters ...it's your intention you should watch.