Spitzer and Prostitution Ring?

No way is this a Joe Bruno move. Joe is one step ahead of the law himself and there is no way that he'd mastermind something like this because if it ever came back to him, he too would be finished.

What I think happened was Spitzer did this all himself - and he's pissed off so many people that no one felt like they owed it to him to step in or help him out. I don't think there was a lot of love lost between the AG's office and the FBI/Justice back when he was AG. For all of his crusading ways, he's not thought of as a "nice" guy and I think folks just decided to let him swing on his own.

homeowner wrote: [quote=mr. met]it's sad that this is a big deal

Its not a big deal because he had sex outside of his marriage, its a big deal because he's used the same allegations to go after other folks (Grasso) and made many public statements as an AG about criminals believing they were above the law, smarter than the government, etc.

His hubris is coming back to bite him in the ass hard, and many of his former friends, enemies, and targets are not going to step in to help him out.

Yes, in 2004 Spitzer busted prostitution rings. That's like putting a pot dealer in jail when you smoke pot yourself. What a hypocritical psycho!

Can you imagine being Eliot Spitzer's children? He has three teenage daughters. I cannot imagine being in junior or high school seeing my pop in the headlines like that. I wonder if his family had any idea.

Not to mention what irrevocable harm he has done to his daughters and his wife, this is a complete betrayal of the public trust and the people who believed in him.

i don't feel betrayed. this has nothing to do with how well he runs our state. dude was just getting his rocks off. people cheat on their spouses all the time. his family should be pissed, not us.

Interstate transportation of someone for sex - violation of the Mann Act.

this is what REALLY gets me angry. i cannot stand it when someone drives someone else into another state so they can have sex. it's just disgusting.

mr. met wrote:

Interstate transportation of someone for sex - violation of the Mann Act.

this is what REALLY gets me angry. i cannot stand it when someone drives someone else into another state so they can have sex. it's just disgusting.

....So you'd say "tough nerts" to all couples in a long-distance relationship, then? Because there's plenty of interstate transportation of one or the other going on there, and it ain't to play cribbage.

The Mann Act banned the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes.” Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking. The act is better known as the Mann Act, after James Robert Mann, an American lawmaker.

....So you'd say "tough nerts" to all couples in a long-distance relationship, then? Because there's plenty of interstate transportation of one or the other going on there, and it ain't to play cribbage.

i was kidding

Who knows more about money laundering than a former AG?

Money laundering = "structuring" = smurfing

Wiki: Structuring is the legal term used to describe the issue of transactions structured to avoid certain recordkeeping and reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and/or 26 USC 6050I ( Form 8300).[1] Sometimes referenced as smurfing in banking industry jargon, structuring includes the act of partialing large financial transactions into smaller transactions to avoid scrutiny by regulators or law enforcement. It is commonly used in the context of money laundering and has been known to appear in official Federal criminal indictments. The term "smurfing" is derived from the image of the cartoon characters, The Smurfs having a large group of many small entities.

Typically each of the smaller transaction is below some statutory limit, that does not require a financial institution to file a report with a government agency. Criminal enterprises often employ several agents (smurfs) to make the transaction.

daver wrote: The whole shell corporation money shifting business doesn't bother you?

Hmm.

Incidentally, that is what tripped him up. The money transfer game, hiding where it was coming from and going to.

</sarchasm>

obviously what he did in terms of purchasing sex is illegal. I'm not certain about the money shifting aspect and shell corporations - a lot of people and corporations regularly engage in this. if, for instance, he were shifting this money around to play in illegal poker rooms in nyc, would you feel as annoyed/irritated/betrayed/whatever? people shift money around for all sorts of perfectly good reasons, keep tons of separate bank accounts, some even hidden from their spouses or business partners. my old boss never got direct deposit so he could deposit his check into his own account and then transfer a smaller amount into a household account for his wife to pay bills with. kinda sleazy, right? another guy I used to work with had a separate account for a similar purpose - so he could take a few trips to vegas a year and not have to admit to his wife that he blew through $10k instead of $1k.

the money laundering and wire fraud laws were all written very broadly and spitzer helped set up the whole automatic IRS monitoring system thingy that trapped him. but I gotta say, when I had to disclose how come I made a one-time deposit of 5 figures into my account one year to my mortgage lender, I was kinda pissed. like, wtf? you have the bank record and see clearly who wrote the check - my employer. it was a bonus.

and, while I can understand the animosity over spitzer and his hypocrisy, I do wish the feds would stop wasting our tax dollars on something that is arguably, like their stupid war on drugs, basically a victimless crime. out the guy for being an amoral asshole, fine, but regulate the industry so that "client #9" knows his name is in a database that's being reviewed by the prostitute regulation board or some crap.

mr. met wrote:

Oh, come on. The issue is not that Spitzer cheated on his wife. It's that he broke the law. Our public officials are supposed to uphold the law; that's why we elect them to office. If they break the law, they break their faith with us.

yea, but i personally don't care about this particular law.

I can see that. However, you don't get to make that decision - and neither does Spitzer.

I agree that there are many bad laws. I think prostitution should be legal and regulated. I think marijuana should be legal. I think gay marriage should be legal. But a lot more people need to agree with me before those laws change. Till then, I have to obey them or accept the consequences if I break them. So why should Spitzer get to break them? Because you don't care about this particular law? Please.

Edited to add: On rereading, I realized my reference to gay marriage might sound like I think it's on par with prostitution - not my intention! I just mean I think it's a bad law. I hope I have not offended!

Livetotravel wrote: The Mann Act banned the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes.” Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking. The act is better known as the Mann Act, after James Robert Mann, an American lawmaker.

The spirit of the Mann Act is not to stop a sex worker from taking Amtrak.
:roll:

The point of disgust and disappointment for me is that Spitzer sets back any good work he has done and has advocated for by acting stupid and arrogant about breaking the law. It has nothing to do with what law he broke, or how I feel about legalizing paid sex, or financial shell games.
For instance , Spitzer was involved in "the toughest and most comprehensive anti-sex-trade law in the nation"

It was a question of supply and demand, they all agreed. And one effective way to suppress the demand was to raise the penalties for patronizing a prostitute. In his first months as governor last year, Mr. Spitzer signed the bill into law.

Now the human rights groups, which credit him with what they call the toughest and most comprehensive anti-sex-trade law in the nation, are in shock. Mr. Spitzer stands accused of being one of the very men his law was designed to catch and punish.

“It leaves those of us who worked with his office absolutely feeling betrayed,” said Dorchen Leidholdt, director of Sanctuary for Families Legal Services, one of the leaders of the coalition that drafted the legislation.

The law, which went into effect Nov. 1, mainly deals with redefining and prosecuting forms of human trafficking, which Governor Spitzer called “modern-day slavery.” It offers help to the women who are victims of the practice, rather than treating them as participants in crime.

But it also lays the groundwork for a more aggressive crackdown on demand, by increasing the penalty for patronizing a prostitute, a misdemeanor, to up to a year in jail, from a maximum of three months.

That was a key shift in approach for New York State, and one the governor and his top aides seemed to support wholeheartedly, said Ken Franzblau, now director of the law’s implementation at the State Division of Criminal Justice Services. Generally, the law and its enforcers focus on pimps and prostitutes, and treat customers as an afterthought.

BTW, It's Official
At least we don't have to wait any more through this odious idea that his resignation would be withheld as a bargaining chip in his prosecution.
Spitzer Resigns, Citing Personal Failings
Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson Set to Succeed Him

Since Albany has been such a stagnant mess for so long, I'm interested to see how career politician/Albany insider David Patterson does as gov, in contrast to mr crusading prosecutor.

maybe his wife was really mean

his wife knew about it already. maybe they worked out a little arrangement.

alafairnadia wrote: [ like their stupid war on drugs, basically a victimless crime.

What a ridiculous comment. How many drug addicts rob and or kill for their next fix? How many families are ruined over people using drugs. How many innocent kids get hooked and die and on and on. Drugs are rarely a victimless crime.

I'm sure Spitzers wife and daughters aren't victims either. Lots of people are saying most likely the mob is involved as they usually are where there is this kind of money. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Good riddance to that scum Spitzer.

eggcream wrote: Lots of people are saying most likely the mob is involved as they usually are where there is this kind of money. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Good riddance to that scum Spitzer.

The mob? Try Real Estate - that's the Spitzer fortune.
If you want to argue about drugs, maybe a new thread is in order since that's not part of hookergate.

I am forever loving the prose stylings of Jim Dwyer, columnist @the NYT
Looking Back on a Political Career: The Good, the Bad and the Contradictory
By JIM DWYER

After more than 36 hours with no audible breaths, Eliot Spitzer emerged from his political coma just before noon on Wednesday to utter his final words, wife and criminal defense lawyer at his side.

eggcream wrote: [quote=alafairnadia][ like their stupid war on drugs, basically a victimless crime.

What a ridiculous comment. How many drug addicts rob and or kill for their next fix? How many families are ruined over people using drugs. How many innocent kids get hooked and die and on and on. Drugs are rarely a victimless crime.

right. just like legalized substance abuse is also essentially victimless when properly regulated: you choose to smoke and die of lung cancer - that's your problem as long as I don't have to breathe your smoke; you choose to drink and fuck up your liver - that's your problem as long as you don't drive a car while intoxicated. there are plenty of legal things we do every day that put other people in danger and that can cause us to commit illegal acts in order to obtain the legal item.

people aren't going to stop doing illegal things like abuse drugs or buy a prostitutes time just because they're illegal -- obvi, no? so why not make it legal and regulate it. cripes.