Plea Expected in Ring Tied to Spitzer (Hooker booker guilty

Plea Expected in Ring Tied to Spitzer
By 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 the four defendants charged in the ring’s operations to have her case adjudicated.

“It’s an indication — it’s not definitive” that a decision is near on Mr. Spitzer, said Patricia A. Pileggi, a criminal defense lawyer who served for 25 years as a federal prosecutor, five of them as the chief of the public corruption unit in the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn.

Ms. Lewis did most of the booking for the ring, according to prosecutors, and a half-dozen of her conversations with Mr. Spitzer about arranging a Feb. 13 liaison with a prostitute in Washington were secretly recorded by the F.B.I. and were described in court papers.

Murray Richman, who represents Mark Brener, the 62-year-old Israeli émigré charged with running the ring, said that he was working toward reaching a plea agreement for his client, and that the matter could be resolved soon. Mr. Brener has been held without bail since his arrest on March 6. Like his codefendants, he was charged with violations of the Mann Act, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit interstate transportation in aid of racketeering.

Emigre Mark Brener, charged with running the ring, has been held without bail since his arrest on March 6, charged with violations of the Mann Act, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit interstate transportation in aid of racketeering.

Brener's money-laundering, conspiracy, and interstate racketeering could involve one heck of a lot more than johns and whores.

CONNECT THE DOTS The IRS, offshore connections, prostitutes in New York, Washington, Miami, London and Paris, supposedly costing $1,000-$5,500 an hour, paid for with cash, credit card, wire transfers or money orders. That raises enormous questions about money laundering, IRS fraud and evasion of US banking laws. The operation could have been facilitating tax evasion by faking high-priced trysts, then taking a cut and depositing the rest offshore to evade the IRS and US banking laws.......and in Spitzer's case evading FEC rules.

On the surface, emigre Brener ran the $5500-an-hour hooker operation and is the alleged mastermind of the high-end Emperors Club. But Brener was also working another operation---he was certified by the IRS to represent US taxpayers in disputes. He was apparently certified by the IRS AND Brener also worked for the Israeli national tax collection agency.

"Temeka Rachelle Lewis exits Manhattan federal court with her attorney Marc Agnifilo, Wednesday, May 14, 2008, in New York. Lewis is accused of booking clients for a prostitution ring and has pleaded guilty in the federal probe that brought down former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer."

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