Eliot Spitzer: Client #9?

[digg-reddit-me]I managed to get through the heavy traffic at The New York Times to get some information on their apparent exclusive scoop on Governor Eliot Spitzer’s “involvement” in a prostitution ring.

Some titillating details…

Emperors Club VIP apparently charged between $1,000 and $5,500 an hour for the services of it’s ladies of the night. It had offices in New York, Washington, London, Paris, and Miami.

The Web site [of the Emperors Club], which was disabled shortly after the arrests were announced, ranked the prostitutes on a scale of one to seven “diamonds.” A three-diamond woman, for example, could command a fee of $1,000 per hour. A seven-diamond woman cost more than $3,000 an hour.

From the Criminal Complaint – with the Times article identifying Spitzer as Client #9 – a record of a telephone conversation between “Rachelle” and “Kristen”, Kristen just having left Client #9’s hotel room:

Client #9 “would ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe – you know? I mean that…very basic things.”

No more details are given.

It is also suggested that Mr. Spitzer was a regular client. Shortly before he is about to meet “Kristen”, Mr. Spitzer asks “Rachelle” to remind him what “Kristen” looked like. “Rachelle” described “Kristen” as “an America, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 poinds.”

At the start of the incident described in the complaint February 11, 2008, Mr. Spitzer had an outstanding balance of $2,600 with the Emperor’s Club. This led to quite a number of phone calls and text messages back and forth trying to determine how he could pay appropriately. Eventually, he paid “Kristen” $4,100 according to the complaint.

Additional suggestive information: Mr. Spitzer’s liaison with “Kristen” was only revealed in the Complaint because he was soliciting across state lines – asking “Kristen” to travel from Manhattan down to Washington, where he was scheduled to appear before Congress the next day. This was how the Federal government got involved with the “interstate commerce”.

Possibly relevant information: the Lieutenant Governor of New York is David Paterson. Despite the fact that Mr. Spitzer did not choose to resign in his minute-and-a-half-long press conference – it’s hard to see how he avoids it if the Times is right about Mr. Spitzer being “Client #9”.

Update: I’m not that outraged by this. As a matter of public policy, it’s hard to see why high end prostitution should be illegal. (I differentiate between high end and normal prostitution, because normal prostitutes – because they are valued less – are at increased risk of drug dependence, physical abuse, exploitation, and sexually transmitted diseases. Normal prostitutes even suffer extremely high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, comparable to soldiers in a war zone.) It does seem typical that Mr. Spitzer prosecuted a number of prostitution rings as attorney general – and now finds himself labeled as the client of one.

Update II: ((Post time edited to reflect this update.)) I don’t think there is anything wrong with going over the salacious details of the lives of public officials – especially if they come out in a criminal investigation. There is a natural interest – at least for me – in the celebrity-style gossip. I generally have little to no interest in news about celebrities. But the same type of news about politicians does interest me, although I am almost and sometimes ashamed to admit it.

But some disturbing questions are beginning to be raised about how Mr. Spitzer came to be the target of this investigation – questions which my interest in the salacious details distracted me from. Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake follows up the ABC New revelation that the operation to take down the prostitution ring apparently began when investigators noticed suspicious money transfers in Mr. Spitzer’s private accounts. Ms. Hamsher asks the logical question: Why was the federal government snooping around in Mr. Spitzer’s private financial records? How did this come to the government’s attention? Ms. Hamsher concludes:

There are all kinds of things about this that just don’t pass the smell test.

Scott Horton of Harper’s points out that this prosecution was under the little-used White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910.

Glenn Greenwald asks why it is only Mr. Spitzer’s name that has been leaked, suggesting that this entire prosecution might have been politically motivated.

Such a thought would not have occurred to most reasonable people just a few years ago – but the numerous revelations about directives to U.S. Attorneys to investigate Democratic officials that came out of the U.S. Attorneys’ scandal makes this seem plausible. There are certainly unanswered questions about how this investigation got started – and why.

ka1igu1a of the Freedom Democrats points out the similarities of this incident to HBO’s The Wire.  He shares a similar distaste for Mr. Spitzer that I have had.  I have always considered him to be somewhat of a bully – even if he shares a significant part of the agenda I espouse.  I am happy to have him as a governor – but the thought of him as president would concern me.

Emily Bazelton over at Slate gives probably the best public policy model and argument for making prostitution illegal, in contrast to my point above.