NEW YORK — It was known as the Bear Mountain Compact: a kind of gentleman's agreement designed to ensure what happens in Albany stays in Albany, safe from the prying eyes of spouses and reporters in Manhattan, a three-hour drive south on the other side of Bear Mountain.
This is a state capital, in other words, with a well-earned reputation for sordid dealings – and one that has witnessed more than its share of legislators snuffed out by scandal.
Yet the city remained in disarray yesterday, still struggling to comprehend revelations that Governor Eliot Spitzer, who arrived here 14 months ago on a self-proclaimed mission to clean up its legacy of taint, had paid thousands of dollars to an escort service for a tryst with a high-priced call girl.
For many observers, it wasn't so much the infidelity – Albany has seen plenty of that – but the wanton recklessness, and some would say, stupidity.
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Mr. Spitzer, after all, was caught using the same techniques he employed to wage battle against organized crime and investment banks.
“Albany seems to be in utter chaos; it's as though an atomic bomb was dropped on the state capital,” said Paul Finkelman, the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at the Albany Law School. “It's beyond comprehension. … It comes back to his hubris; the man simply thought, ‘I'm above getting caught, and I can get away with this stuff.' ”
The question now centres on Mr. Spitzer's once bright political future, which few believe is salvageable. The governor may have spent as much as $80,000 (U.S.) on prostitutes, Associated Press reported yesterday, suggesting a pattern of behaviour that will only inflame his Republican adversaries, who yesterday said they would move to impeach him if he did not resign within 48 hours.
The governor remained hunkered down in his Manhattan residence with family and confidantes, and has yet to indicate his plans.
Reaction to Mr. Spitzer's alleged indiscretions has dominated national press coverage, fuelled no doubt by the contrast between his image as a sanctimonious enforcer and the tawdry details of his alleged improprieties.
But perhaps the strangest part of the governor's fall from grace, given his history, is that he was not caught up in a prostitution ring. The prostitution ring was caught up in his dealings. Media reports have suggested that an investigation into this particular prostitution business was triggered by several cash transfers from Mr. Spitzer's account to one operated by an escort service known as Emperor's Club VIP.
That, in turn, incited a sting operation last fall by the FBI, which uncovered a network of more than 50 prostitutes, some charging $5,500 an hour, who serviced rich men in New York, Washington, Miami, London and Paris.
As part of that investigation, police listened to one man – referred to in court documents as Client 9 – hire a prostitute from the Emperor's Club last month and then haggle over his account balance, implying he was a repeat customer. Client 9, which is said to be Mr. Spitzer, had to rush to assemble funds in order to pay her $4,300 for a two-hour meeting at a Washington hotel, according to the documents.
What no one can figure out is how a shrewd and savvy prosecutor like Mr. Spitzer could have left himself vulnerable to the sort of traps he once laid for his quarry. He used wiretaps to help crack the Gambino family as an assistant attorney-general, and later pressed to give law enforcement greater latitude in eavesdropping. His probe into tainted Wall Street research and investigation of shady practice in the mutual-fund industry made him well-acquainted with the banking system, and how to follow a paper trail.
Those who do attempt to explain his behaviour either shrug their shoulders in disbelief, or resort to armchair psychology, invoking his reputation as an arrogant crusader with a deeply held conviction in his own sense of invulnerability.
“It's sort of the million dollar question, because it was really stupid,” said Michael Gilligan, a politics professor at New York University. “This guy should have known better. He authorized these things on several occasions as attorney-general, and had to know these sums of money transfers would cause red flags. I don't know how he thought he'd get away with this.”
Although prostitution is illegal in New York, it's not something that tends to be prosecuted, even though Mr. Spitzer's alleged solicitation of a call girl from out of state would technically run afoul of a law called the Mann Act, which regulates interstate commerce as a means of addressing the problem of prostitution and immorality in general. The more troubling issue for the governor, say legal experts, is whether he funnelled cash to an offshore account. Mr. Finkelman, the law professor, said that is allowable, so long as the person moving the money declares the transaction, which Mr. Spitzer allegedly didn't.
“It's something you could easily prosecute if you can prove that he did it,” he said.
Even if Mr. Spitzer is spared an indictment, that will prove little comfort for a man once regarded as a strong candidate to lead the federal Democratic Party and mount a run for the White House.
“He was obviously compulsive,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist who helped stage-manage the resignation of New Jersey governor James McGreevey when he revealed he was gay. “The question is, ‘Does he survive?' And the answer is, ‘No.' He's got no friends. He's got no goodwill. Effectively, the sheriff of Wall Street was killed by the points of his own badge.”
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