New York Governor Eliot Spitzer: Client-9
March 11th, 2008UPDATE #2: Spitzer Working Municipal Bond Rescue Plan at Time of Revelation
Woh. I guess I’ll throw a check mark in the Coincidence box as well. What else? This one seems to have it all!
Why do we know that Spitzer is Client-9? Who are clients X, Y and Z?
Via: Financial Times:
One investment banker thought it was a joke and carried on with his meeting.
Others sat speechless, unable to avert their eyes from the television screens broadcasting the end of the career of one of Wall Street’s most feared foes.
News of Eliot Spitzer’s alleged involvement in a prostitution ring, and his possible resignation as governor of the state of New York, were met with stunned disbelief in the wood-pannelled offices and trading floors of downtown and midtown Manhattan.
Some could not resist taking a swipe at a man who, as New York’s attorney general, had castigated Wall Street for its ethical shortcomings.
“It’s a complete shocker,” a senior banker said. “Everyone is gossiping about it. And plenty of people on Wall Street are saying he deserved it.”
But others stressed that Mr Spitzer’s alleged personal shortcomings ought not to tarnish his legacy as a regulator.
“This is stunning. This is like finding out that Mother Teresa had been taking kick-backs,” said Henry Hu, a law professor at the University of Texas. “But I don’t think this undermines his achievements. This behaviour has got nothing to do with what motivated him to go after Wall Street”.
Some bankers noted that Mr Spitzer’s downfall had come at time when he had been co-operating with some of his former enemies on Wall Street to try to bring atability to the troubled municipal bond sector.
Harnessing his widespread contacts from his time as attorney-general, he had been making numerous phone calls to chief executives of top banks such as Citigroup, Credit Suisse and UBS in behind-the-scenes efforts to secure fresh capital to bail out bond insurer Ambac.
Eric Dinallo, the New York insurance regulator who was appointed by Mr Spitzer and who has been working extremely closely with him on the Ambac rescue, did not know about the allegations until he saw the news coverage on Monday, people working with Mr Dinallo said.
The many executives felled by Mr Spitzer’s investigations – from Hank Greenberg, former chief executive of the insurer AIG, to Richard Grasso, former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange – remained tightlipped on Monday.
— End Update —
UPDATE #1: Ringleader Carrying U.S. and Two Israeli Passports
I’m going to add this post to the Covert Operations and COINTEL categories as well. On the face of it, I thought, “Obvious honeypot, intelligence agency compromise operation,” but I had absolutely nothing to even point at to make that case.
Now we learn that the the ringleader had two Israeli passports and a U.S. passport!
— End Update —
Via: New York Post:
Four people were charged with prostitution and tax crimes for allegedly raking in more than $1 million with a stable of 50 girls that serviced clients in New York, Washington, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, London, Paris and Vienna.
Mark Brener, the 62-year-old alleged ring leader from Monmouth Junction, NJ, along with his girlfriend and alleged top madam, 23-year-old Cecil “Katie” Suwal, , from Cliffside Park, NJ, both face up to five years in prison on prostitution charges and 20 years behind bars for money laundering.
Authorities raided Brener’s home early yesterday and found $600,000 in cash and 19,000 in Euros in various safes, prosecutors said.
Brener, they said, had two Israeli passports in addition to his US passport.
Two other women, Tanya Hollander, 36, a nutritionist from upstate Rhineback, and Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, of Brooklyn, face similar charges for handling the day-to-day business.
— End Update —
Elite deviance is par for the course in these circles. The remarkable thing here is that the activity involved an adult woman.
We should note that Eliot Spitzer made some VERY serious enemies on Wall Street during his tenure as New York Attorney General, and earlier, in the Manhattan DA’s office, when he took on the Gambino organization. The Eliot Spitzer Wikipedia page has a summary of the bigger cases.
Via: The Smoking Gun:
With the bombshell news today that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has been implicated in a prostitution ring, the Democratic politician will now always be known as “Client-9,” one of the johns described in a recently unsealed FBI affidavit detailing the operation of the Emperors Club, an international call girl ring. That document, an excerpt of which you’ll find below, describes hooker interactions with 10 johns, including one client who paid cash for a February 13 rendezvous at a Washington, D.C. hotel. The New York Times, which broke the Spitzer story, has identified the 48-year-old politician as Client-9. As described in the FBI document, Client-9 (clearly a repeat customer) apparently went to great lengths to arrange the illicit Washington encounter, choosing to mail money in advance to the ring, instead of using a credit card. Client-9, whose conversations were recorded by an FBI wiretap, would not do “traditional wire transferring,” the affidavit quotes one Emperors Club employee remarking. Additionally, the affidavit notes that after her appointment with Client-9 ended, “Kristen” spoke with a Emperors Club booker, who said that she had been told that Client-9 “would ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe…” “Kristen” responded by saying, essentially, that she could handle guys like that.
I don’t know why I find the just beginning media circus with Spitzer so effing hilarious. Sad. Depressing. Awful.
Sexual preferrences will be played out as perversions (and I for one don’t think it is a perversion to pay someone for sex – I just don’t – its a “service” in my mind, and whether or not you like it or not people this is a practice thats been around for a millenium or more)are ALWAYS PLAYED UP WHEN A DEMOCRAT DOES IT.
How much do want to bet that Spritzer paying a prostitute gets more “airtime” than all of the Catholic priests raping little boys in total?
Sex with a Democrat must be more interesting. Juicy. Rambunctious. Even the thought of sex with a Democrat must make people horny. That’s why this will be the new Monica Lewinsky.
What about that Republican judge found wearing a dress and black fish net stockings driving drunk story lasted about one second?
Boring. Yawn.
That Spitzer did well as Attorney General with his crime convictions will sadly be lost on those not aware that he cut way to close to the bone re organized crime, etc.
Isn’t it interesting that this exposure of Spitzer comes when someone with half his cahones might possibly go up against WALL STREET and expose them as a criminal mafia organization
eH?
Think this is a warning to BACK OFF to Cuomo?
Methinks it is so. Most likely from hilary. Yawn.
American politics are so preditable. So boring. So empty. So nothing.
A bunch of teenagers vying for who has the best prom dress/tuxedo, when the real adults in the building, like Spitzer, are brought down cause they pay for their sex, but aren’t whores to begin with.
And in the meantime who will keeping an eye on the real world – Iraq, the war mongerer/assassins in the US?
Certainly not these a”holes.
I’m feeling more sad for Spitzer by the minute and am going to stop cause I’m getting upset by this.
I agree. Why didn’t Clinton resign? Instead, he might well be headed back to the white house for a third term and a shot at more young interns. A movie of what’s going on in this country now would be a flop because it would be too unbelievable.
Rather a hoot, this. But prostitutes and their clients are engaging in voluntary trade, so their private, voluntary actions should not be outlawed. I once spoke to a young woman who was close to graduation from college. She admitted that her tuition and living expenses were largely supplied by her trading sexual acts for money. Hey, more power to her. She’ll probably end up President some day.
I think NZ’s decriminalization of prostitution is one of the things the country’s doing right. As for Spitzer, if he isn’t suicided right away and decides to squeal, some dudes in the Halls of Power and Privilege will have some ‘splaining to do, eh?
There is nothing very remarkable about paying for sex. It is in fact the normal course of things for guys to pay for sex, one way or another. The “cash and carry” form of payment is not legal.
Or, to put it another way, it is okay to own, but it’s not okay to rent. To quote an old friend, “It’s cheaper to rent than to own.”
Or, to put it yet another way–and to quote another old friend, “I got no respect for no free ****er.”
Or, to put it yet another way–and to quote a high school teacher and former collegue, “Any man who puts his shoes under my bed or his knees under my table better leave some cash on my dresser.”
Since when is this something to get excited about?
Then, of course, there’s the monogamy issue. But since when has lifelong monogamy been an actual, practical, working system? This system has been malfunctioning ever since it was invented.
Nothing to get excited about there either.
Now the very large amounts of money alleged to be involved may suggest that there’s something to get excited about. I think I read somewhere that these ladies charge $5,000 for their services. Of course, this argues that Spitzer pays his employees well.
I don’t care what Spitzer did with his wee wee, or what it cost him. What consenting adults do in private should be up to them.
I’m more interested in why the organization’s pimp was holding three passports.
To add to the coincidence factor of update #2, look at where the major indices were at the time of the announcement: testing the January lows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position_%28book%29#Charles_Keating
Hmm…
God bless NPR – just as I imagined, the announcers couldn’t hide their glee at having something to do with SEX to gloat over. Sounds to me like another Karl Rove hit job on a Democratic governor. But more than that too.
1) Governor Spitzer was asked by Rep. Cynthia McKinney to look into 9/11
2) There’s this editorial he wrote published in the Washington Post the day before his Valentine’s Day “massacre”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783_pf.html, and
3)that the “john” had 2 Israeli passports. Oh Comon now. Obviously, there is something definitely NOT KOSHER about this hit on Governor Spitzer.
Too bad he felt he had to resign from public life. I don’t think this is going to be the “end.” Governor knows too much.
Doesn’t take long to go from hero to zero then back up these days
http://www.cafepress.com/clientnumber9
Eileen, that link to Spitzer’s editorial seems to have been moved. New link here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783_pf.html