Call me a cynical but the timing of this information being given to the press seems to be strategic.
It came at the worst possible time for the Clintion camp and has really hurt her chances.
It would be intresting to see when this investigation took place and if there was lag time between then and the press release.
I read the criminal complaint today... it's online on CNN and it's 55 pages long. Basically the FEDS were targeting this Emperor's VIP Club because it was an international prostitution ring. They had a confidential source that was a former prostitute for them in 2006. For her cooperation she is given immunity from prosecution.
The Emperor's club set up 2 phony accounts under phony business names, operating under names of QAT international or some other "QAT" title. Examination of the financial records show between the 2 accounts they have collected 1 million dollars from clients in 3 years. They have been investigating this escort service and the outreach of it - internationally, UK, Vienna, and within the US (LA, NY, DC, Miami) since October 2007.
Governor Spitzer was caught up in an operation targeting the business itself as a result of the investigation concurrently... OR the bank notified the treasury department of his moving large sums of money around and that launched the investigation on the Escort Business itself.
He was one of 10 clients in the complaint. They obtained wiretaps on the service and he was caught on them. The wire tap has him on record verifying that he still had a 400 credit from the last time. He wanted to make an appointment in DC. The service balked because they traditionally want 50 percent of fee deposited upfront. They also have wire taps of cell phones and text messages of the escort service owners talking about how Client 9 (Governor Spitzer) doesn't use traditional wire transfer. He sends a package with cash in it. The day prior to the appt. they were waiting to get his package in the mail. It got there at the last minute. She was supposed to leave on a train at 4:45pm from NY. His package did not arrive until 4:21pm. So they had her leave on a later train at 5:29pm to DC.
On wire they have him talking about paying for the train ticket, cab fare, hotel room and the session was for 4 hours. His total was 3,721 dollars. They asked if he could give more to the prostitute "Kristen" when she was there so they could assure he had a credit to prevent the same situation from happening. He thought his balance was 2600 (400 credit from the last time). The booking person "lewis" could not verify the 400 credit. He said he could give Kristen 3600 so he had a 1000 dollar credit for next time (covering the deposit, avoiding the scramble to send money by mail). They said to make 1500. He didn't know if there was machine that he could come up with that kind of money.
Package (payment) arrived. She got to DC. Balance was 2721. When he got to the room, Kristen would call lewis and that's when the 4 hours would begin. So the fee was 750 for 4 hours. At the end Kristen collected 4300 dollars from Client 9 (Governor Spitzer) 1500 as the credit. The business didn't want to adopt this business model where they took advanced payments, but would make an exception to avoid the last minute shenanigans in the mail from the last time.
There were 9 other clients in the investigation 10 total, so it was 5 months and the governor was just one of 10. He is high profile however. He has power to pardon criminals and in his DA career he prosecuted prostitution rings and white collar wall street crime.
The US attorneys office is not doing any plea agreement w/ him. They are not going after the sex of it, they are going after the money that he was laundering money to an illegal business across state lines. (Irony, the next day after his interlude Gov. Spitzer was in DC talking about online business, requiring that NY consumers pay a NY state tax, the current system relies on the honor system to report it on their income taxes. Only in his case, he's not reporting taxes on a service that wasn't legal). Keep in mind, his last interlude was less than 4 weeks ago Which the criminal complaint and the wire taps
As far as Hillary being hurt by it. Not likely.
New York has already had their primary, and she won. At best, she lost 1 guaranteed superdelegate vote from Spitzer. Though he was reluctant to support her for her bid for president, because she didn't support his run for Governor in 2006, but eventually relented. So I don't see a lot of love loss to behonest. So both Obama and Hillary can talk to governor patterson to get his pledge vote.
I don't see this scandal hurting her that much - I mean her campaign has done a piss poor job to plan her being contested this far out...they all assumed it would be locked in after Super Tuesday.
Though when you read the complaint. They weren't targeting the governor. They were targeting the business and they found him. The bank also reported him moving around his bank accounts.
New york has changed it's banking laws since 9/11, they are flagging accounts that appear to move larger sums of money, structured in smaller payments. So if you're trying to hide 10,000 movement of money and break it up in (3) payments of 3.3K each in 3 day period, it will flag your file and they will investigate if you're trying to hide a 10K flag of money for an illegal purpose.
It's not politically motivated, it's not anti-semitic. If you wanted to reach for a conspiracy in this, he didn't make any friends on Wall street, he prosecuted white collar crime, investors that defrauded share-holders, etc. So it's likely that money people were scrutinizing him, but it appears the FEDS were investigating this Escort service for some time. Given that the governor has a law license and took steps to mask his activities, they have to pursue it.
I'll be amazed if they don't drop charges. The complaint is pretty daming.
