End Of The Line For 'Client 9'
BY JOHN TOSCANO

Under heavy pressure from the public, his opponents and members of his own party, Governor Eliot Spitzer announced his resignation Wednesday, March 12 at noon. Spitzer’s resignation will be effective Monday. March 17 in order to give his successor, Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, time to put together a transition team. Paterson will become the first black governor in the history of New York state. The former state senate minority leader from Harlem is also legally blind.

“Like all New Yorkers I am saddened by what we have learned over the past several days,” Paterson said in a statement responding to Spitzer’s imminent resignation on Wednesday. “On a personal level, Governor Spitzer and Silda [Silda Wall Spitzer, the governor’s wife] have been close and steadfast friends. As an elected official, the governor has worked hard for the people of New York.

“My heart goes out to him and to his family at this difficult and painful time. I ask all New Yorkers to join Michelle [Paterson’s wife] and me in prayer for them.

“It is now time for Albany to get back to work, as the people of this state expect from us.”
In an ironic twist. Spitzer’s leading political enemy, Joseph Bruno, Republican state senate majority leader, will become lieutenant governor under the state constitution.
Other pressures on Spitzer came from Republican Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, who announced he would seek to begin impeachment proceedings against Spitzer if the governor did not resign.

Spitzer’s resignation came amid new reports of his allegedly having paid for sexual trysts with prostitutes on a regular basis, going back to his days as state attorney general. The new allegations followed closely after the release of transcripts of a federal wiretap of conversations in which Spitzer arranged payments for an encounter with a prostitute in a Washington, D.C. hotel room on February 13 of this year.

Tedisco, one of Spitzer’s fiercest foes, fired the impeachment threat after the governor several months ago declared himself “a f—steamroller” who would roll over Tedisco.
Tedisco said he didn’t relish “doing this to him”. But, he said, “This [involvement with the prostitute] was a true breach of the promise that he presented to the public when he ran last year that he would change the way ethics worked here in Albany.”

While the governor remained out of sight, the media had a field day in Tuesday’s editions providing every detail, and then some, of Spitzer’s meeting with the prostitute at the posh Mayflower Hotel in Washington on February 13.

The governor was in the nation’s capital to testify the following day before Congress on the bond insurance mess.

Meanwhile, there was speculation that Spitzer might have been delaying his resignation to give himself time to receive assurances that he will not face any possible criminal charges arising out of his alleged meetings with prostitutes.

One possible source of concern is that he allegedly paid the prostitute’s train fare to Washington on Feb. 13.

This could be a violation of the federal Mann Act, which makes bringing someone across state lines for the purposes of prostitution (“immoral purposes”, the law reads).
There was also the possibility that the governor could be charged with “structuring”, which involves moving money around to cover up the actual reason for making a payment to someone.

Spitzer was believed to have huddled with his attorneys on Tuesday. He had previously retained the high-level Manhattan law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison to represent him.

The federal affidavit that revealed Spitzer’s alleged February 13 tryst with a prostitute also suggests that the governor, identified only as “Client 9”, had availed himself of Emperor’s Club call-girl ring VIP services previously.

The affidavit indicates he spent $4,300 on a person named Kristen, who was described as a “pretty brunette, 5 feet, 5 inches, and 105 pounds”.

Sources familiar with the federal investigation said yesterday that the troubles that led to Monday’s revelations about Spitzer began with a federal money-laundering probe.
Investigators in an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office on Long Island were making a routine examination of suspicious financial transactions reported to them by banks.
In doing so, they found some unusual movements of cash which, it turned out, involved Spitzer, according to IRS officials.

It appeared, the officials said, that the governor was trying to conceal the source of a large amount of money which wound up in the accounts of what appeared to be shell companies, corporations that appeared to have no real business. In addition, the transactions suggested possible financial crimes.

The IRS then called in the FBI, the sources said, because the accounts suggested government corruption. Eventually, the FBI Corruption Squad linked the account transfers to a prostitution ring, the sources said, and the FBI Criminal Division came into the case to check out the prostitution connection while the federal corruption team continued following the Spitzer connection.

Spitzer’s withdrawal from the governor’s seat comes at a time when he appeared to be gaining a real striking position from which he could replace Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
Spitzer, who had been leading that fight, was behind the winning Democratic candidate who won a special state senate election last week that had been held by a Republican.
This left Bruno with just one seat more than the Democrats, making it much easier for Spitzer and the Democrats to take over the majority with some winning races in November.
Despite Bruno’s increasingly shaken majority position, he stopped short Tuesday of calling on Spitzer to resign. “The important thing for the people of New York state is that people in office do the right thing because there are so many challenges out there and it’s important that we govern, move forward to getting the proper budget in place for the people of the state,” Bruno declared.

On the other side of the aisle, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on Tuesday urged more time for Spitzer to decide his next move.

“I think it’s Eliot Spitzer’s determination here that’s important,” Silver stated speaking to television reporters in Albany.

“He [Spitzer] has to do what’s best for him and his family. I think his statement yesterday made it very clear that he understood that should be the focus of his life.”