Sex Scandal, Hipocrisy Brings Down Spitzer
He went after Wall Street, the insurance industry, going after some of the biggest players in their respective industries, and gained fame as the crusader of justice during his tenure as New York Attorney Eliot Spitzer. Now the man who was once dubbed "Mr. Crusader" has fallen from grace with all the makings of a Greek tragedy.
Spitzer resigned as governor of New York yesterday, scheduled to take effect on Monday, March 17, amid allegations of being involved in a prostitution ring, the hypocrisy and irony lost on no one. Women's rights groups had hailed his efforts to bring stronger penalties against men who used prostitutes.
The governor who liked to call himself "the steamroller" reportedly came to the attention of prosecutors because he was moving money from a bank account in a suspicious manner. That led investigators to a high class prostitution agency, and to the revelation that Spitzer was one of its clients.
New York's tabloids reported on Wednesday that the governor had spent some $80,000 on prostitutes.
Spitzer faces the possibility of federal criminal charges over how he may have paid for prostitution services, specifically charges of structuring, which entail payments made so as to conceal their purpose and source.
Another violation may involve money laundering, if payments made to the suspected prostitution ring's shell corporations are found to be part of a larger conspiracy, legal experts said.
Legal observers speculated Spitzer was seeking to reach a deal to avoid or reduce any criminal liability before he left office. On Wednesday, the top federal prosecutor in New York said there was no such deal.
Published on March 13, 2008
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