Thank goodness we have the former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, to remind us of what real sex scandals are like. Ironically, while he served as attorney General of New York, Spitzer, a Democrat, prosecuted some of the very laws he would later break.
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.
Hypocrite.
