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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...

The first post-election Dem coverup? AG claims "no sign of any financial wrong-doing" despite evidence Spitzer used campaign funds for his hookers.

NEW YORK - Federal prosecutors said Thursday that they will not bring criminal charges against Eliot Spitzer for his role in a prostitution scandal, removing a legal cloud that has surrounded the former New York governor since his epic downfall eight months ago. U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said investigators found no evidence that Spitzer or his office misused public or campaign funds for prostitution. Investigators found that Spitzer solicited high-priced call girls, but federal prosecutors typically do not prosecute clients of prostitution rings. "In light of the policy of the Department of Justice with respect to prostitution offenses and the...

With Election Day right around the corner, the Republicans are bringing back an issue that brought them national media attention: Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's long-dead plan to let illegal immigrants get driver's licenses. Assemblyman Greg Ball, an outspoken Hudson Valley Republican (particularly when it comes to all things immigration-related) who won a bitter GOP primary battle last month, and Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola, who sued over Spitzer's license plan, are holding a public hearing in Manhattan Thursday on "massive voter fraud potential" caused by the issuance of 23,000 licenses to non-citizens during the former governor's tenure. From the press...

The financial-market implosion and the coming transformation of the securities industry pose a risk to the national economy. But they especially imperil New York State, which for decades has built its budgets on the expectation of raising ever-greater revenues from a Wall Street that now no longer exists. New York was once a great industrial state. But for the past quarter of a century, with occasional bear-market interruptions, the state's dependence on Wall Street has grown as manufacturing has shriveled. Last year, nearly 18% of private wages in New York State came from the securities industry. That was up from...

Big Fuld Richard S. Fuld, Jr., (Former) CEO of Lehman Brothers Big Cayne James E. (Jimmy) Cayne, Former CEO of Bear Stearns Big Spitzer Eliot Spitzer, Former New York Governor Big Bernanke Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman of Federal Reserve Board

Eliot Spitzer, who is temperamentally unable to stay out of the headlines for more than 72 hours, is back in them again. Last week, the New York state attorney general accused commercial insurance companies of bid-rigging. In response, the stocks of the biggest players implicated, Marsh & McLennan and AIG, have tanked, losing a combined $38 billion in market capitalization. More alarming for the insurers, Spitzer signaled this was just the beginning of an industry-wide investigation. For when he finds a few bad eggs, Eliot Spitzer cleans out the entire coop and changes the way it is run, as Wall...

Michael Savage on now with cogent argument and lots of documentation on why Wall Street wanted Spitzer gone. Info also on Savage's website. Savage will be on just a little while longer, since he's not feeling well today. Savage suggests that either Spitzer be brought back to carry on the investigation he started into who was up to what in the big mortgage companies or that others who can be trusted take Spitzer's paperwork and carry through on Spitzer's investigations and indictments.

NEW YORK, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Two former racing employees have sued former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, claiming they were victims of a witch hunt when he was attorney general. Lawyers for Mario Sclafani, 51, who lives in Dutchess County in New York, and Braulio Baeza, 68, of West Virginia, say that Spitzer and others were involved in a malicious prosecution, the New York Daily News reported. Sclafani and Baeza were charged with taking bribes from overweight jockeys, but a judge threw out the case during trial in 2007. The suit filed in federal court names several employees of...

Tania Hollander, 36, became the fourth and likely last person to plead guilty in the sex scandal that exposed Ashley Alexandra Dupré as former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer’s high-priced call girl. The scandal led to Spitzer’s resignation and launched Dupre to national prominence. Hollander's lawyer described her as a minor character in the scandal, but she could face up to five years in jail. Hollander, 36, of Rhinebeck, N.Y worked as a booker for the Emperors Club VIP, the high-priced New Jersey-based call girl ring that eventually hired Dupre. Hollander told the court she began looking for work early...

Kristian Stiles. What is her role in the Spitzer scandal, and how is she connected to the campaign of Congressman Michael Arcuri? (snip)

Three senior aides to a former governor, Eliot Spitzer, and a former state police superintendent violated state ethics laws by plotting against a former Republican majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, the state's top ethics body has concluded. More than a year after the Spitzer administration was hit with allegations that it improperly used the state police to dig up travel records that could prove damaging to the former Senate leader, the State Commission on Public Integrity handed down the first formal charges related to the scandal. It did not find evidence linking Mr. Spitzer to the scandal. The...

<p>Four former officials of the Spitzer administration violated the state’s Public Officers Law when they sought to have the state police gather damaging information about State Senator Joseph L. Bruno’s travels on state aircraft last summer, according to a report released today by the State Commission on Public Integrity.</p>

ALBANY — Four Spitzer administration officials violated the state’s ethics law when they used the State Police last summer to gather travel documents they hoped would tarnish Joseph L. Bruno, then the State Senate majority leader, according to a report released on Thursday by the State Commission on Public Integrity. The report drew on 3,000 pages of testimony and thousands of internal documents, and depicts an administration on a war footing, with Gov. Eliot Spitzer seething over attacks from Mr. Bruno and eager to strike back. It also describes an extensive — but ultimately fruitless — effort by the governor’s...

Spitzer hooker sued for ID theftPublication date: 18 July 2008 A New Jersey woman alleged in a lawsuit that the woman accused of being a prostitute who allegedly catered to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer stole her identity. Ashley Dupre was accused of using a driver's license bearing the name of Amber Apraio in order to get herself into a Girls Gone Wild video that was widely circulated on the Internet after the Spitzer prostitution scandal broke. The Star-Ledger newspaper of Newark, N.J., said Dupre was underage at the time the video was produced several years ago. Arpaio, a resident...

ALBANY — Two payments to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington were included in former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s campaign filings, which were released on Tuesday afternoon. The two payments, $411.06 apiece, were recorded on Jan. 14, 2008, although it is unclear what nights were covered, or whether Mr. Spitzer stayed at the hotel. A person with knowledge of the evidence developed in the federal investigation of Mr. Spitzer said the former governor had two encounters with prostitutes in Washington in early 2008. Whether Mr. Spitzer might have misused campaign money to finance dealings with prostitutes has been one of the significant...

SPITZ WILL TALK DIRTY TO PANELLast updated: 3:51 am July 14, 2008 Fredric Dicker DISGRACED former Gov. Eliot Spitzer will be subpoenaed within weeks to give his first public testimony in the Dirty Tricks Scandal if, as expected, a state commission charges his former aide Darren Dopp with violating state law. Dopp lawyer Michael Koenig, a former federal prosecutor, has concluded Spitzer's testimony would be crucial to back up his client's claim that the former governor gave the go-ahead for every step in the plot that used the State Police to gather purportedly damaging information on now-former Senate Majority Leader...

After bringing down Gov. Eliot Spitzer and becoming the most infamous hooker in America, Ashley Dupre is about to stoop even lower than prostitution - reality television. The former high-priced call girl is hungry to become the "next Tila Tequila" with a dating-type reality show that she is now developing with a Los Angeles-based company, E! News reported yesterday. Dupre, 23, doesn't yet have a deal to air the show - but she is set to kick her plans into high gear by moving to the Left Coast from the New Jersey mansion where she now lives with her mom...

Justice Denied has uncovered documents that have been deleted or altered to obsure Congressman Arcuri from what may be a possible association with the Spitzer scandal.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Stock Exchange chief Richard Grasso won a knockout victory on Tuesday in his four-year fight to keep every last penny of his $187.5 million pay package, as an appeals court threw out the state's remaining claims against him. The ruling, Grasso's second court victory in the past week, prompted New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to throw in the towel. The New York Supreme Court's appellate division, in a 3-1 vote, dismissed two legal claims against Grasso brought by former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2004. The ruling follows a decision last week...

Spitzer "actually enjoyed destroying people," said a former NYSE managing director, Richard Riker. "Spitzer's legacy is tarnished and trashed because of [the prostitution scandal that led to his resignation] and the Richard Grasso lawsuit suit." "[The Court of Appeals decision upholding Grasso's pay package] becomes part of the realization that Spitzer was no more than a legal lightweight who bullied and slashed his way through Wall Street using the power of his office," Riker said. Spitzer's personal reputation was already in tatters. Revelations that Spitzer had a years-long addiction to high-priced prostitutes - and that he might be indicted himself...

ALBANY — Again and again when he appeared before a state ethics commission last year, a top aide to Gov. Eliot Spitzer tried to explain that he had told the governor about steps he was taking to gather the travel records of Joseph L. Bruno, then the Senate majority leader. But the commission’s executive director kept changing the subject and did not want to hear about Mr. Spitzer’s involvement, says the aide, Darren Dopp. In his first extended interview about the case, Mr. Dopp said this week that he was refusing to reach a settlement with the ethics commission, known...

NY-24: Arcuri Tied to Spitzer Prostitution Scandal Former Fundraiser Under Federal Investigation By Bluey Posted in Congress | Freshman Rep. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.) paid $44,000 to a political consultant who is under federal investigation as part of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. The story first broke on a blog in Arcuri's hometown of Utica, N.Y., and is now leading the news in the Upstate New York city.

New York’s High Court Sides With GrassoWednesday June 25, 10:35 pm ET By JENNY ANDERSON On Wall Street, there are stars that fade and stars that fight. Richard A. Grasso is one of the latter. On Wednesday, Mr. Grasso, the former chairman and chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, won another round in his almost five-year battle to keep the $187.5 million of pay he amassed during his eight years at the helm of the Big Board. The New York State Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling dismissing four of six counts originally brought by Eliot...

Spitzer Call Girl Dupre Speaks Out On Myspace BlogLast Edited: Tuesday, 24 Jun 2008, 4:09 PM CDT Call girl Ashley Dupré is speaking out for the first time since the scandal that brought down New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, thanking her fans and her critics alike. "Thank you all so much for taking the time to send me a bit of strength and inspiration via e-mail or comment," Dupré, 23, writes on her MySpace blog, in which she calls her mood "Thankful." "Your words have touched me, and I thank you for that ... with all my heart, I love...

It’s been a tough year for the Spitzer family, to say the least. Now that the legislative session is coming to a close, and he’s no longer responsible for steamrolling lawmakers into achieving reforms anyway, papa Eliot is taking the whole gang on a summer vacation. On Monday, according to sources, the disgraced ex-governor, wife Silda and their three girls will depart for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. A spokeswoman for the Spitzers, Anna Cordasco, confirmed the trip and said the family was going to Southeast Asia but didn’t know the specific countries. Spitzer is still under investigation by the Feds...

ALBANY — A state ethics panel is seeking to settle cases against top aides to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a year after their alleged involvement in an effort to gather the travel records of Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader. The panel, the Commission on Public Integrity, has been threatening to open a formal public inquiry against some of the aides if they refuse to settle, according to people who have been briefed on the inquiry. The commission, which began its investigation last summer, has also questioned Mr. Spitzer under oath since he left office, though it is not...

Eliot Spitzer to receive Ultimate Sugar Daddy title! New York, June 17 : Eliot Spitzer is set to receive a 'kinky' honour- the "Ultimate Sugar Daddy." The disgraced former Governor will be given the 'title' as a part of the first annual George Burns Memorial Sugar Daddy Awards. As a part of his winning, Spitzer will win a pound of sugar, a year's worth of free lap dances from strippers at the VIP Men's Club in Chelsea and an unlimited supply of testosterone pills. Other "honorees" include Woody Allen, Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Hugh Hefner and Bill Maher, all described...

Mayor Bloomberg is a nasty, untrustworthy, tan trum-prone liar who "has little use" for average New Yorkers - like the 1,500 workers who would have lost their jobs had OTB closed, a furious Gov. Paterson has said privately. "He appears to be self-destructing," the governor said. According to a source with firsthand knowledge of Paterson's comments, the governor said that during talks last week on OTB's future, Bloomberg threw the same kind of bizarre tantrums that disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer had been known for. "He has the same kind of anger that reminds you of Spitzer," The governor charged...

3rd guilty plea in Spitzer call-girl ringPublication date: 13 June 2008 The man who ran the New York prostitution ring involved in the political downfall of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer pleaded guilty Thursday to prostitution. Mark Brener's lawyer said he did not agree to cooperate in an ongoing federal investigation, The New York Times reported. Brener also pleaded guilty in federal court to money laundering. Brener was the third person involved with the Emperor's Club V.I.P. to enter a guilty plea. Temeka Rachelle Lewis, who handled bookings, did so in May and Cecil Suwal, the manager, pleaded guilty June 3....

Eliot Spitzer plans 'vulture fund' to relaunch careerBy Tom Leonard in New York Last Updated: 2:03am BST 12/06/2008 Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York caught in a prostitution scandal, has resurfaced with plans to set up a new property business. Mr Spitzer resigned as state governor in March after he was caught on a federal wiretapping operation arranging to meet a prostitute in a Washington DC hotel room. He had been a vocal campaigner against prostitution in New York, where he signed the country's toughest anti-prostitution laws, increasing sentences for men who used the services of escort...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― The man who ran the prostitution ring that supplied hookers to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer is set to plead guilty this week, bringing prosecutors closer to Spitzer himself. For months the big question in political circles has been whether Spitzer's resignation would be enough to stop the feds from indicting him. "The remorse I feel will always be with me," Spitzer said on the day he announced he'd be stepping down as the leader of New York. The noose appears to be tightening. On Thursday Mark Brener, the man who ran the Emperor's Club VIP hooker...

The federal case against him is so strong that prosecutors had no interest in striking cooperation agreements with the ringleader of Spitzer's hooker-supplier, Emperors Club VIP, and his second in command, sources told The Post's Murray Weiss. Prosecutors have records of Spitzer's transactions, phone records and taped conversations with Emperors Club, and are confident they need little more to nail him on charges that could include violating prostitution laws and money laundering, sources said. Probers are also said to be looking into whether he used campaign funds to pay for his pleasures. The case against Spitzer includes the cooperation of...

Albany DA to release Spitzer, aides testimony in probePosted at: 06/06/2008 04:46:53 PM Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares says he will release the secret testimony of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his top aides in the dirty tricks probe that consumed much of Spitzer's abbreviated term. Soares will release thousands of pages of documents sought by several news organizations after the material is reviewed according to county policy. The testimony could show how involved Spitzer was in the work of two staffers who collected state police travel logs that showed Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno - Spitzer's adversary...

More than 800,000 snapshots from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have been stitched together to create a new "coming of age" portrait of stars in our inner Milky Way galaxy. The image depicts an area of sky 120 degrees wide by two degrees tall. It was unveiled today at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Mo. "This is the highest-resolution, largest, most sensitive infrared picture ever taken of our Milky Way," said Sean Carey of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. Carey is lead investigator for one of two teams...

Woman pleads guilty in Spitzer call girl scandalBy The Associated Press Wednesday, June 4, 2008 11:38 AM EDT NEW YORK - A woman accused of helping run the prostitution ring patronized by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to violate federal prostitution laws. Prosecutors say Cecil Suwal, 23, ran the day-to-day operations of the Emperors Club V.I.P. escort service, which charged clients up to $5,500 an hour for the services of its women. Suwal was accused of supervising the company's booking agents, paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars to prostitutes and controlling shell companies used to...

Enlarge ImageFresh look.Recent surveys of the Milky Way show it contains a prominent central bar feature (bottom), distinguishing it from other galaxies of the classic spiral variety (top).Credit: (top) NASA/Spitzer Space telescope (bottom) NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech) The Milky Way Gets a Facelift By Phil BerardelliScienceNOW Daily News03 June 2008Forget what you thought the Milky Way looked like. The galaxy is far from the simple and elegant spiral-armed structure so often portrayed. New observations, presented today at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Missouri, reveal, among other things, that the Milky Way is missing two...

Court To Decide If Spitzer Overreached on GrassoBy JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun May 30, 2008 The state's highest court is gearing up to decide whether Eliot Spitzer overreached four years ago when, as attorney general, he sought to force a former New York Stock Exchange chief, Richard Grasso, to relinquish his $187.5 million pay package. On June 3, the Court of Appeals, which sits in Albany, will hear arguments on a sticking point in People v. Grasso that will set the ground rules for any eventual trial. The state, whose case is now pressed by Attorney General...

May 24, 2008 -- ALBANY - A veteran State Police forensic scientist hanged himself yesterday under circumstances shockingly similar to the suicide of another state police official just eight days ago Garry Veeder, 59, left a note in his Albany suburb home saying he was concerned about becoming a target of an internal probe regarding the handling of a high-profile case, the Albany Times Union reported. But sources said Veeder, who recently put in his retirement papers, was not implicated in the investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is probing suspected political espionage by a rogue group of State...

Another state police veteran commits suicideAssociated Press 05/23/2008 ALBANY - A state police forensic scientist was found dead at his home Friday, the second apparent suicide of a state police veteran in just more than a week, according to a state government official. The scientist's name wasn't released. The official confirmed the report on condition of anonymity because the death hasn't been announced by authorities. On Tuesday, the former head of Gov. George Pataki's security detail was buried in Orange County. Retired Inspector Gary Berwick was found dead at his home May 15. The deaths have come as officials investigate...

An imminent recession could cost New York City 59,400 jobs between now and the middle of next year, with the profit-stricken financial sector the "epicenter" of the downturn, a new report said on Tuesday. This would amount to one quarter of the hiring by private employers after the 2001 recession, according to the Independent Budget Office, a fiscal monitor that serves as the city's equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office. But the previous downturn, which accelerated after the September 11, 2001 attacks, will still turn out to have been more severe, as employers cut about 43 percent of jobs added...

May 17, 2008 -- Albany's dirty-tricks scandal seemed serious but straightforward at the outset: The Spitzer administration deployed state troopers and a credulous local newspaper reporter to put a hit on a political enemy. Then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, implicated in a prostitution scandal, resigned in March - and his successor, David Paterson, asked Cuomo to probe reports of a "rogue" State Police unit that engaged in political espionage. . . . Whereupon it was revealed that e-mails and, perhaps, other evidence allegedly had been scrubbed from the BlackBerry and computer of a key figure in the probe - retired State Police...

A former top State Police official who killed himself left behind a detailed suicide note focusing on Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's probe of the Dirty Tricks Scandal and feared an ongoing investigation of ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer's involvement with prostitutes, The Post has learned. Recently retired State Police Inspector Gary Berwick, who hung himself in the garage of his home on Thursday, wrote a wide-ranging and sometimes rambling suicide note, sources said. The letter zeroed in on his close relationship with former acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton, a key figure in last summer's political espionage scandal who was dumped after...

The cooperation agreement reached between prosecutors and an employee of the call-girl ring known as Emperors Club VIP will come in handy should the Manhattan U.S. attorney, Michael Garcia, decide to charge Governor Spitzer with a crime. The woman, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, who entered a guilty plea to money laundering and prostitution-related charges yesterday, would be a key witness against Mr. Spitzer if the former governor is charged in connection with patronizing an Emperors Club prostitute... Lewis, who booked clients for the call-girl service, had several phone conversations with Mr. Spitzer to hammer out the logistics of payment and...

AIG shareholders gathered for the big insurer's annual meeting in New York on Wednesday, and the mood wasn't cheery. After a three-year experiment in Eliot Spitzer-imposed management that has cost them billions, more than a few shareholders were pining for the days of former CEO Hank Greenberg. "He did a heck of a job," said one shareholder heading out of the meeting... ...while AIG is suing him for the accounting restatements it took after his departure, he is taking the highly unusual step of suing back. He claims the accounting changes were never justified... A careful and lengthy look at...

Plea Expected in Ring Tied to SpitzerBy WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and IAN URBINA Published: May 13, 2008 The woman accused of being the primary booker for the prostitution ring patronized by Eliot Spitzer is expected to plead guilty this week to charges related to her role in the ring, people involved in the matter said Monday. The woman, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, is expected to plead guilty in federal District Court in Manhattan to charges of money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit interstate travel in aid of racketeering, one of the people said. She would be the first of...

Attorney General Wants to Know Who Deleted New York Power Authority E-mailsLast Update: 1:46 pm Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wants to know who deleted e-mails from a computer and phone used by New York Power Authority’s Inspector General Daniel Wiese. Cuomo subpoenaed the emails as part of a probe as to whether members of the State Police were involved in political interference. Cuomo said that the deletion of the e-mails was “extremely troubling.” **SNIP** Governor David Paterson asked Cuomo to investigate, but it has been held up by the deletion of Wiese’s e-mails.

Politicians appear to be on a whistle-stop tour of infidelity. It's the McGreevey-Dann-Spitzer show — and then some. Infidelity is big theater these days, providing both spectacle and cautionary tale to eager onlookers and press alike. Adultery and its attendant behaviors have created a popular culture and cottage industry all their own, driving political strategy, press coverage and — on rare occasions — a few positive outcomes. America is along for the ride — and ready to hear more about the greater implications of infidelity. "We love it. It confirms our worst fears about politicians and confirms our suspicions," talk...

<p>THE office computer of suspended Power Authority Inspector General Daniel Wiese was "wiped totally clean" of e-mails and other records just days before being seized by investigators probing an alleged State Police dirty-tricks squad, The Post has learned.</p> <p>The computer, believed to contain sensitive details of Wiese's communications with State Police officials, was grabbed last month at the Power Authority's headquarters in White Plains under a subpoena issued by the office of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a source close to the authority said.</p>

<p>COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and other Democratic leaders are calling on scandal-scarred Attorney General Marc Dann to resign.</p> <p>Dann's response to his fellow Democrats is that he is staying on the job.</p> <p>Strickland, Sen. Sherrod Brown, other Democratic state officeholders and all Democratic state legislators sent Dann a letter Monday saying his actions hurt his ability to do his job.</p>