Spitzer Sex Scandal

(Newser) - Eliot Spitzer continues his slow creep back into the public eye. The disgraced New York governor will begin writing a regular column for the online magazine Slate, the New York Observer reports. Spitzer's column, called the Best Policy, will debut tomorrow, then appear every other week. It will cover government, regulation and finance, and will focus heavily at first on the current economic mess. More »

(Newser) - Former celebrity hooker Ashley Dupre has a new career in mind: musician. The call girl who brought down Eliot Spitzer has signed a manager, the New York Post reports. The infamous Dupre has made a deal with Chris Lighty, who has worked with 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, and Missy Elliott. More »

(Newser) - The House Financial Services Committee is poised to open an inquiry into the investigation that led to Eliot Spitzer’s resignation, the New York Times reports, with Democratic members wondering aloud if the federal probe could have been a politically motivated hit job. The former New York governor was not charged in the prostitution scandal, so the inquiry will be the only detailed examination. More »

(Newser) - Silda Wall Spitzer, liberated from the constraints of being a politician's wife, has gone to work for a Manhattan hedge fund, New York magazine reports. A former corporate attorney, Silda will be recruiting investors for Metropolitan Capital Advisors, run by the wife of a long-time Spitzer friend and supporter. Meanwhile, Eliot may write a book. No, it won’t be a tell-all; he plans to expand his recent Washington Post op-ed offering economic advice to Barack Obama’s administration. More »

(Newser) - Ashley Dupre presented herself in a primetime interview last night as a normal girl who made some misguided decisions. The woman whose tryst with Eliot Spitzer wrecked his career told ABC's Diane Sawyer she drifted into the escort business as a "naive" and "careless" 19-year-old, just 2 years after ditching high school and moving out on her own. She chalks up part of her trouble to growing up without a dad. "I felt like I missed something," she said. "To have a certain level of respect for yourself." More »

(Newser) - Former call girl Ashley Dupre is haunted by the pain she caused Eliot Spitzer’s wife, but insists her tryst with the former governor of New York was “strictly business,” the New York Post reports. Dupre tells People in a forthcoming interview that she didn’t realize who “Client No. 9” was until she saw him on TV announcing his resignation. More »

(Newser) - These days, Eliot Spitzer may be famous for his horizontal escapades, but once he was a pro-regulation crusader trying to reign in Wall Street’s excesses. Spitzer tried to raise the alarm about market transparency, AIG, and subprime lending, but he and those like him were always “scoffed at for failing to understand or even believe in ‘the market,’” he writes in the Washington Post . More »

(Newser) - Eliot Spitzer’s lady of the night met with Diane Sawyer this week for her first-ever interview, set to air next Friday, Gawker reports. “This is not the Eliot Spitzer story. This is the Ashley Dupre story,” an ABC source tells MediaBistro . The call girl in the sex scandal that brought down New York’s former governor was paid a hefty fee—not for the interview, but for “consulting” and “archival footage,” in standard interview practice. More »

(Newser) - The prostitution agency that once served Eliot Spitzer is hardly happy that the disgraced former governor is getting off, at their expense, Salon reports. Spitzer evaded federal charges for patronizing a prostitution ring, prompting an attorney for one of the agency’s bookers—who is facing 6-16 months in jail—to call him a “much more egregious actor than my client.” More »

(Newser) - Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer will not be charged in connection with his involvement in a prostitution ring, the New York Times reports, as federal prosecutors could not adequately connect payments made by Spitzer. “The public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter,” the US attorney for New York said in a written statement. More »

(Newser) - New York's self-proclaimed No. 1 escort recounts how she introduced Eliot Spitzer’s $4,300-an-hour call girl to the drug-fueled world of prostitution in an upcoming book, The Price . Natalie McLennan reveals, in an excerpt in the New York Post, how within months Ashley Dupre transformed from a “little lamb” hotel clerk to a hard-partying, drugged-up hooker who “could barely keep her eyes open.” More »

(Newser) - A new epilogue to the best-selling book King of the Club suggests that Eliot Spitzer’s political and personal downfall was payback by the mafia, the New York Post reports. "I think it's the Gambinos," a private eye tells CNBC's Charles Gasparino in his book’s paperback edition. More »

(AP) - A woman accused of helping arrange trysts between pricey escorts and their customers has pleaded guilty in the prostitution scandal that forced Eliot Spitzer to step down as governor of New York. Thirty-six-year-old Tanya Hollander pleaded today to a charge of conspiracy to violate the travel act. It's against the law to cross state lines while furthering an illegal business. More »

(Newser) - Call-girl Ashley Dupre has done the state of New York a huge favor, Michael Daly writes in the New York Daily News . If the sex scandal hadn't brought down "self-righteous, mean-spirited and divisive rich kid" Eliot Spitzer, New York wouldn't have the "warm-hearted and manifestly decent" governor it has today in David Paterson, Daly writes. More »

(Newser) - The “awkward” and icy marital status of shamed former governor Eliot Spitzer and wife Silda was on display last week in the Big Apple as they “made only two seconds of eye contact during dinner” with another couple, a spy told the New York Post . More »

(Newser) - A New Jersey woman has filed a federal lawsuit against Ashley Dupre—better known as Eliot Spitzer's high-priced call girl—and Girls Gone Wild for defamation and invasion of privacy for Dupre's use of the woman's lost driver's license on the raunchy program. More »

(Newser) - Eliot Spitzer's filings for his now-defunct 2010 reelection campaign, released yesterday, included two payments to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington—the site of his infamous trysts with call girls, the New York Times reports. Though it's unclear whether Spitzer himself stayed there, and if so on what nights, misuse of public campaign money is one of the potential charges the former New York governor could face for his participation in a prostitution ring. More »