Free Republic

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department used some of its most intrusive tactics against Eliot Spitzer, examining his financial records, eavesdropping on his phone calls and tailing him during its criminal investigation of the Emperor’s Club prostitution ring. The scale and intensity of the investigation of Mr. Spitzer, then the governor of New York, seemed on its face to be a departure for the Justice Department, which aggressively investigates allegations of wrongdoing by public officials, but almost never investigates people who pay prostitutes for sex. A review of recent federal cases shows that federal prosecutors go sparingly after owners and operators...

Eliot Spitzer is in therapy in the wake of the hooker scandal that swept him out of office.....The randy politician's penchant for ladies of the night came when analysts noticed several unusual financial transactions from Spitzer's bank accounts. Thinking it might be evidence of bribery (that someone co-opted Spitzer's good name), investigators uncovered his involvement with a high-end sex ring--Emperors Club VIP---one of 10 deep-pocketed johns caught on wiretaps arranging for trysts with top-dollar hookers. Spitzer has not been charged with a crime, but federal prosecutors are following the money trail to see if the fallen Democrat used campaign money...

LOS ANGELES - Stop that $1 million check: It turns out the call girl linked to Eliot Spitzer had already shed her clothes for “Girls Gone Wild” as an 18-year-old while partying in Miami, the video company’s founder said Tuesday. Joe Francis had reached out to Ashley Alexandra Dupre, now 22, with an offer of $1 million to appear in a non-nude spread for his company’s new magazine, plus a chance to join the “Girls Gone Wild” tour bus, his company announced Tuesday. But Francis said someone had a revelation at the Tuesday morning staff meeting: Did anyone think to...

LOS ANGELES — Stop that $1 million check: It turns out the call girl linked to Eliot Spitzer had already shed her clothes for "Girls Gone Wild" as an 18-year-old while partying in Miami, the video company's founder said Tuesday. Joe Francis had reached out to Ashley Alexandra Dupre, now 22, with an offer of $1 million to appear in a non-nude spread for his company's new magazine, plus a chance to join the "Girls Gone Wild" tour bus, his company announced Tuesday. But Francis said someone had a revelation at the Tuesday morning staff meeting: Did anyone think to...

The high-priced hooker who sunk Gov. Spitzer's political career was a party pal of one of his top financial backers, boozing it up with him at clubs and his palatial Hamptons mansion. James Chanos, 50, a billionaire hedge fund manager who runs Kynikos Associates in Manhattan, says he met Ashley Alexandra Dupre - the girl at center of the gov love scandal - at a nightclub several years ago and often invited her to parties, But he denied introducing her to Spitzer.

New York’s Governor Eliot Spitzer (D) resigned in disgrace after it was discovered that he has been cavorting with high-priced prostitutes for a number of years. As NY’s Attorney General, Spitzer had been an avid prosecutor of prostitution, referring to it as a “stain on the community’s moral well-being,” and its patrons as “low-life scum.” Spitzer defended his liaisons as the notorious “Client #9,” saying that he had been engaged in “a long-term, under-cover sting operation.” “People have unfairly accused me of lust and fornication,” Spitzer said. “They don’t understand the kind of dirty work that has to be done...