Posted on 11/06/2008 8:47:05 PM PST by TheEaglehasLanded
U.S. Attorney Says Former N.Y. Governor Did Not Misuse Campaign Funds As A Client Of 'Emperors Club VIP'
NEW YORK (CBS) ― Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer will not face criminal charges following his role as a client in a high-profile prostution ring that led to his resignation in March.
U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia announced his decision Thursday afternoon.
"Eliot Spitzer has acknowledged to this Office that he was a client of, and made payments to, the Emperors Club VIP. Our investigation has shown that on multiple occasions, Mr. Spitzer arranged for women to travel from one state to another state to engage in prostitution. After a thorough investigation, this Office has uncovered no evidence of misuse of public or campaign funds," Garcia said in a statement.
Garcia also said there was no evidence pointing to criminal means of payment to the Club, despite court documents and published reports indicating that perhaps as much as $80,000 was transferred from Spitzer's account to a trio of dummy companies that were fronts for the escort service.
"In light of the policy of the Department of Justice with respect to prostitution offenses and the longstanding practice of this Office, as well as Mr. Spitzer's acceptance of responsibility for his conduct, we have concluded that the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter," Garcia said.
Spitzer issued a statement expressing relief in the decision and again apologizing for his misconduct, though once again not specifically stating what that misconduct was.
"I appreciate the impartiality and thoroughness of the investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office, and I acknowledge and accept responsibility for the conduct it disclosed. I resigned my position as Governor because I recognized that conduct was unworthy of an elected official. I once again apologize for my actions," Spitzer said.
Spitzer, the 54th governor of New York, officially resigned on March 17 after he was found to be a client of the Emperors Club VIP that was busted days before. He has remained out of the public eye since, though CBS 2 caught him in line to vote with his wife, Silda, on Tuesday morning in Manhattan.
Once known as "Mr. Clean" for his tenure as an attorney and attorney general, and his promise to sweep corruption up and out of Albany, he'll forever be known as "Client 9," which he was referred to in wiretaps of the call girl agency.
Financial transactions showed Spitzer spent thousands on prostitutes through the agency. In a transcript of the wiretap, it appeared that "Client 9" was willing to pay nearly $3,000 for just a few hours last month with call girl "Kristen," and even pay up to $2,000 in advance for future flings.
Kristen was later identified as 22-year-old aspiring musician Ashley Alexandra Dupree,
"I am deeply sorry I did not live up to what was expected from me. To every New Yorker, and all those who believed in what I tried to stand up for, I sincerely apologize," Spitzer said at the time of his resignation.
Four people pleaded guilty in recent months to running the prostitution operation that led to Spitzer's demise.
Stay with wcbstv.com and CBS 2 for the latest in this developing story
The one thing Bush could do before he leaves office is to pardon the border agents.
**don’t exactly read any tabloids ... **
Maybe we should ... they are continually found to be more credible than the NYTimes!
“Well....this frees him up to be Obama’s Attorney General”
Nope, Nifong is up for that job.
Isn’t that the Smithsonian behind that guillotine.
How can this crap go on while Jefferson's aide admitted to complicity in what Jefferson did, pled guilty, was convicted, and is serving time for everything that this scumbag denies doing while having stashed $90K in cold-cash bribe money in his freezer. Who are the scumbag's low-life lawyers and who is paying them?
"Off The Hook: No Criminal Charges For Spitzer"
All of which was contained in his post's headline. His only mistake was to not include parenthesis, around the added verbage. A reasonable person would CUT HIM A LITTLE SLACK.
Where’s Henry Bowman?
“Off the hook”, or “Off the Hooker”?
...and justice for all
No kidding!
He says on his profile page “Somehow, I always post something that gets my butt tossed.”
While this doesn’t rise to *that* level, I can see how that might come about.
Nobody ever got to the bottom of NYS’s Troopergate scandal, either. So what if ‘Rat state pols are using members of the NYS Troopers as their own personal goon squad.
Get used to it.
Obama will fire the U.S. attorneys, put his people in, and the charges against Jefferson will go away.
On Spitzer, I agree with Garcia’s decision if there were no public funds used.
I’d like to see John Edward’s misappropriation of campaign funds be investigated.
He’ll be fired in January. He was appointed by Bush.
Now as you point out the timing of the non-prosecution announcement also looks non-coincidental.
Originally had wondered whether it was showing that Hillary would blackmail superdelegates with FBI files.
Could this scandal's emergence and the tossing of prosecution however have been actually arranged somehow by backers of Obama? Wouldn't have thought it. The timing of the emergence and the announcement of no prosecution however certainly both appear to be non-coincidental. I don't know enough to know the reason behind these apparent non-coincidences though. Looks suspicious and probably is.
AIG goes from a firm being prosecuted to a firm borrowing millions from the government and getting a special deal.
Spitzer went up against the international bankers.
One thing for sure is that there was a special investigation of Spitzer going on.
If one could find out how that was arranged for and directed that might lead one closer to answering the question of what was the motive for the person or people who wanted to bring down Spitzer.
Despite my earlier suspicion regarding the timing of the emergence of the scandal, I had completely missed out on drawing a conclusion regarding the timing of the no prosecution announcement here.
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