With David Paterson officially sworn in as Governor of New York State, New York Magazine has taken an extensive look at the epic fall of Eliot Spitzer.

It is with no small amount of irony that the clandestine, covert operations that he built his career around ended up being the 48-year-old’s undoing.

A 30-year-old ADA charged with investigating mob control of trucking in New York’s garment district, Eliot Spitzer found joy in the undercover.

Spying on the Gambinos was worlds away from Riverdale, where he’d grown up the son of a real estate mogul, and from Princeton and Harvard Law School.

It was all in service of a noble cause, of course, like ending the “mob tax” on clothing manufacturers. The Gambino crime family was clearly evil.

The whole investigation took three years, and every chance he got, Eliot Spitzer would slip on the headphones and listen to tapes from the wire.

Ever since, Eliot Spitzer has been hooked on the clandestine.

She couldn’t stop crying. Barely a day earlier, the man she’d been married to for two decades, the father of her three daughters, stunned Silda Spitzer with the revelation that he’d been sleeping with a prostitute, Ashley Dupre.
Now here were Eliot and Silda Spitzer, on a cloudy Monday afternoon in March, in a warren of state-government offices on the 39th floor of a midtown building, huddled among shell-shocked and tearful staffers.

The New York Times had just broken the story on its website. She hated what he’d done, hated the idea of being seen as a “stand by your man” wife. Silda had even said in the past that she would never go the route of Hillary Clinton.

But maybe appearing together today would somehow help their daughters - all teenagers - through this incredible nightmare.

And Silda Spitzer, an experienced lawyer herself, had somehow been able to think objectively about what her absence might say to federal prosecutors.

Continue reading in New York Magazine …

In a millisecond, Comedy Central’s hilarious Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report pretty much summed up how most of us feel about the actions of the outgoing, disgraced Governor of New York State, Eliot Spitzer.

Stephen Colbert’s reaction to the sex scandal - in which Spitzer was outed after paying for trysts with high-priced prostitute Ashley Dupre, a.k.a. Kristen …

Eliot Spitzer certainly made many people cringe this week.

On a serious note, and somewhat interestingly, Eliot Spitzer himself appeared on The Colbert Report February 12, the night he booked Ashley Alexandra Dupre for $4,300 and the day before federal investigators nailed the prostitution ring.

The Governor, who is resigning the office as of Monday, has been married to Silda Spitzer for over two decades and has three teenage daughters.

Only 22, Ashley Alexandra Dupre (also known as Kristen), is now a star in the scandalous demise of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whether she likes it or not.

Kristen, outed in a federal investigation as engaging in a February 13 rendezvous with Eliot Spitzer at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, has spent the last few days holed up in her upscale New York apartment.

According to the New York Times, Ashley Alexandra Dupre made a brief appearance in court Monday as a witness in the case against four people charged with operating the now-infamous prostitution ring known as Emperor’s Club V.I.P.

In a series of interviews Wednesday, Ashley Alexandra Dupre said she had slept very little over the past week due to the stress from the case.

“I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster,” the New Jersey native - listed on her “bio” as 5-foot-5 and 105 pounds - said as she spoke with the Times.

Born Ashley Youmans but now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupre or by her work name of simply “Kristen,” she stated with significant understatement:

“This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated.”

Ashley Alexandra Dupre has not been charged with a crime as of this post.

The lawyer appointed to represent her, Don D. Buchwald, told a judge in court on Monday that she was subpoenaed to testify in a grand jury investigation.

Eliot Spitzer, 48, who is married to Silda Spitzer, 50, and has three daughters (all teenagers) announced that he will resign as governor effective Monday.

Continue reading about Ashley / “Kristen” in the New York Times …

As Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama can attest, to be a political spouse is to be a subject of great scrutiny - even when there’s no scandal involved.

So when Silda Spitzer silently stood beside her husband in abject misery the other day, she spurred remarkable amounts of online and TV debate.

From Hillary Rodham Clinton to Dina Matos McGreevey to Suzanne Craig, a long line of wronged spouses have done the same. But why?

Silda Spitzer was obviously in the worst kind of pain after New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was snared in a federal probe of a prostitution ring.

Proving himself both hypocritical and morally bankrupt, he broke the law by paying for trysts with a call girl named Kristen. Why stand there and take it, Silda?

Amy Ephron of the Huffington Post says just wants “one of them - Hillary, Silda - to stand on the steps of the White House, the governor’s mansion, and stamp their foot and say, “And another thing, I’m keeping the house.’”

Donna Webster, a product development executive in Boston, wished he had faced the music alone, but empathized with Silda Spitzer’s choice, which she assumed was for the sake of their three teenage daughters.

UNDER A MICROSCOPE: Silda Spitzer arrives at the news conference where her husband, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, admitted his personal indiscretion.

“I’ve been thinking about this constantly. I cringed when I saw her next to him,” Webster said. “I think he should have taken it like a man - without her.”

“[Silda Spitzer] was in crisis mode. She was like a mother bear protecting her cubs. When crisis hits, you do what you think you need to for your family. Later, you can step back and think about protecting yourself.”

UPDATE: Eliot Spitzer has announced that he will resign as Governor of New York State, effective Monday. Spitzer said that he will step down from the state’s top office and promised to “atone for my private failings” with family members.

Aides to Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who will become the Empire State’s first African-American governor, have begun planning a transition.

His political demise was inevitable, but whether Spitzer will face criminal charges is uncertain. Spitzer’s lawyers are in discussions with the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, trying to negotiate a plea deal, according to various news sources.

As we reported earlier, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet at a Washington hotel on February 13 with a prostitute named Kristen from the Emperors Club VIP, leaving his political future in peril.

The wiretap of the prostitution ring showed a man identified as “Client No. 9” - Eliot Spitzer - paying $4,300 in cash, some of it credit for future trysts, some of it for sex with Kristen, a “petite, pretty brunette, 5-feet-5 inches, and 105 pounds.”

A defendant in the case, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, told Kristen to take a train from New York to Washington for an encounter with Client No. 9 on February 13.

According to what was told Kristen, Spitzer would be “paying for everything - train tickets, cab fare from the hotel and back, room service, travel time, and hotel.”

According to court papers, an Emperors Club agent was told by Kristen that her evening with Client 9 went well. Well, that’s good to hear.

The agent said she had been told the client “would ask you to do things that … you might not think were safe,” but Kristen replied: “I have a way of dealing with that … I’d be, like, listen, dude, you really want the sex?”

Is it just us, or is it harder and harder to believe that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will remain in office with each detail that’s revealed here? It gives us the creeps.

Snared by wiretapping laws he helped enact, Spitzer is under extreme pressure to resign and many believe it won’t be long before that takes place.

If and when Eliot Spitzer steps down, Lt. Gov. John Paterson, a legally blind, career politician from Harlem, would take office and complete Spitzer’s term.

The Democrat, 53, who would become the eighth African-American governor in U.S. history, is known for commanding strong bi-partisan respect.

Continue reading this article …

Just two days ago, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party - not only a ball-buster (a steamroller, even), but one with a squeaky-clean image as a consumer advocate and corruption buster.

Moreover, as one Donkey Dish contributor (a Columbia business school student) puts it, Spitzer was the moral compass of the financial world.

What a difference 48 hours makes.

Linked to a top-dollar prostitution ring in a federal investigation, the married, 48-year-old father of three daughters faces a tenuous future. At best.

Putting aside how depressing this is on moral grounds, or how stupid he is to think he wouldn’t get caught, it’s a brutal hit to the Democratic party to lose one of its toughest, smartest members - one with an incredibly bright future.

Even if he hangs onto his current post, Eliot Spitzer - pictured with wife Silda Spitzer at a news conference yesterday - will be forever tainted by this scandal.

“There’s no way he can survive it,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican political consultant and adviser to ‘08 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

“All the facts aren’t out there, but as they’re being reported, there’s no way you can survive. Not only is he a hypocrite, he may also end up a charged felon.”

Eliot Spitzer publicly apologized for an undisclosed personal matter. He did not specifically mention the prostitution sting, and he did not resign.

Four days earlier, prosecutors announced the arrests of four people in an international prostitution ring that charged clients up to $5,500/hour.

Wiretaps in the case identified Eliot Spitzer as an unnamed client (No. 9, to be specific) who met a prostitute on February 13 at a Washington hotel.

Political professionals were stunned, in large part because Spitzer, as a former Attorney General of New York State (1998-2006), had made a name for himself going after organized crime and Wall Street corruption.

Does Eliot Spitzer stand a prayer of remaining Governor of New York?

Continue reading this article …

In a story almost more astounding for the stupidity involved than the lack of ethics, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel.

A federal investigation into a prostitution ring revealed a wiretap of a man identified as “Client 9″ on a call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a hotel room.

The person briefed on the case identified Eliot Spitzer as Client 9.

Spitzer today made a brief public appearance, during which he apologized for his involvement in the prostitution ring, describing it as a “private matter.”

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong,” said Eliot Spitzer, who appeared with his wife Silda at his Manhattan office. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.”

“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”

Before speaking, Spitzer stood with his arm around his wife; the two nodded and then strode forward together to face more than 100 reporters.

Both Eliot and Silda Spitzer had glassy, tear-filled eyes, but they did not cry. The New York Governor did not address his political future.

Continue reading this article …