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Eliot Spitzer under investigation for choking a woman

Long time readers will recall that Eliot Spitzer--in his days of wine and roses (and secret romps with call girls)--was one of my bête noires. Since his fall from power, of course, I've had little reason to discuss Spitzer. 

But I can't resist mentioning Spitzer's latest problem:

Ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s night with a woman at The Plaza hotel on Valentine’s Day weekend went south when the pair started arguing and he allegedly choked her, law-enforcement sources told The Post on Sunday.

The woman told cops she broke a glass and cut her wrists after the fight, sources said. She eventually stopped cooperating. ...

In her 2013 memoir, ex-prostitute Rebecca Woodward alleged that Spitzer once pinned her to a bed and choked her during a $1,500 role-playing tryst in a Murray Hill apartment.

“The more struggle there was, the more he was into it,” she wrote in “Call Girl Confidential.”

It's a reminder that moralizing crusaders often turn out to have feet of clay.

Sicko Spitzer Snagged Sucking Smith Soles

Long time readers will remember our old bête noire Eliot Spitzer, whom we routinely castigated for his anti-business, corrupt, self-aggrandizing policies as NY attorney general. Then, of course, we castigated him for being a philandering prostitute patron. But even so, we are surprised at his capacity to still surprise us with his depravity. Latest data point:

Sleazy Eliot Spitzer turned a resort hot tub into a steamy love cauldron over the weekend — kissing and sucking the toes of his topless mistress, Lis Smith, in front of families with children, mortified witnesses told The Post.

The still-married former Love Gov and Smith, Mayor de Blasio’s ex-mouthpiece, were spied frolicking near the family pool at around 4 p.m. Sunday at the Half Moon family resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

“It was gross,” said a hotel witness, who was vacationing with her family. “She had her top off.”

The disgraced Spitzer — infamous for wearing his signature black knee socks while having sex with hookers — appears to have a bit of a foot fetish as well, according to onlookers.

“He was licking her toes,” the witness said. “She would sit in his lap. Then he’d put her feet in his mouth. He licked her toes and was playing with her feet.” ...

A 10-year-old boy who saw Smith topless in the pool ran back to his parents and shouted, “Mom there’s an old guy in the Jacuzzi with this girl and she’s topless and she’s got her legs wrapped around him,” sources said.

The boy’s cries — “He’s sucking on her toes!” alerted other guests, who walked over to catch an eyeful.

While the mind boggles, the tummy retches a little. We now return you to your regular programming.

Good Riddance Spitzer by Larry Cunnigham

The virulent narcissist Eliot Spitzer should now slink quietly back into political obscurity.  Having been decisively defeated in yesterday’s Democratic primary race for comptroller of New York City, Americans can breathe a sigh of relief that New Yorkers had the sense to repel the preening scion.

The hypocrite, who made his name by falsely accusing others of wrongdoing that turned out to be the kind of misbehavior he had engaged in, threatened to use the same bullying tactics running New York City’s finances. This would have meant flexing muscles to attack corporate America indiscriminately in the interest of Spitzer’s self-promotion.

The sideshows he promised involved waging battles against corporations in which NYC invests to effect corporate governance makeovers on terms Spitzer would approve. Such distractions would not only have ruined reputations of corporate managers, but would have impaired corporate productivity, cost American economic output and diminished employment prospects and retirement funds of people across the country.

via www.concurringopinions.com

I love it. Wish I had written it.

Spitzer Lost!

Eliot "Luv Guv" Spitzer appears to have lost his bid for public office (and rehabilitation), losing the NYC controller Democrat primary. The astonishing thing is that 48% of New York City voters were either so stupid or so utterly lacking in moral sensibility as to vote for the sleazy bastard.

Cunningham spanks Spitzer

Larry Cunningham takes one of my least favorite people--Eliot Spitzer--to the woodshed in a devastating trip down memory lane:

Eliot Spitzer says he’ll do in the New York City comptroller’s office what he did in the New York State Attorney General’s office.  Assuming he is not lying, that would be a very dangerous thing. New York City voters should remember what he did as AG.  ...

As AG, Spitzer twisted a Depression-era law called the Martin Act, intended to police bootleggers, into a despotic sword against corporate New York—the “legal equivalent of King Arthur’s Excalibur,” an informed legal analyst wrote.[i]  Writers at Forbes summarized the modus operandi: “The hallmark of a Spitzer trophy is victory by intimidation.”[ii] ...

Spitzer brought many down and rattled innocent good citizens.  Everyone in New York City should worry that Spitzer will find ways, as he threatens, to radically expand the power of the comptroller to do equally dangerous things in the City.  That will include trampling on due process rights and instilling in people fear of out-of-control government officials such he aspires once again to be.

In the gaps between the quoted paragraphs, Cunningham provides a distressing list of amazing abuses by the Luv Guv.

Spitzer's chutzpah reaches new highs (or should that be lows?)

Eliot Spitzer:

Asked by host Chris Matthews Monday on MSNBC’s “Hardball” who he would vote for in the mayoral election, Spitzer was hesitant to answer. Matthews pressed Spitzer, saying “You’re not going to vote for Anthony Weiner, can you just say that now? You don’t think he should be mayor of New York.”

Fair point, that is correct,” Spitzer responded.

Spitzer, who resigned as governor in 2008 in the middle of a prostitution scandal, is running for New York City comptroller.

Matthews also asked Spitzer if, as comptroller, he would fire a public official who was using city equipment to engage in a pastime similar to Weiner’s multiple online relationships.

“I think the answer is yes,” Spitzer said. “We have had a number of instances over the years where inevitably, of course, municipal employees, state employees have used computers and the like for improper purposes and there is an appropriate sanction for that and there should be.”

Quick question: When Eliot Spitzer was NY AG and/or the Luv Gov, did he use government computers or phones to set up his trysts with hookers?

Hedge funder Boykin Curry sends email asking for Wall Street support for Spitzer

As one Wall Streeter aptly paraphrased Curry's absurd argument:

“Vote for Spitzer: He may be a whore-monger, but at least he’s an arrogant bully — and doesn’t owe anyone anything, because his daddy set him up just like mine did!”

via www.nypost.com

Eliot Spitzer - The Poster Child for Shareholder Activism

Compared with governor, city comptroller is obviously a downwardly mobile plunge, but Spitzer said he has long appreciated the ability of the office to shape public policy, impose accountability on the budgetary process, and, with its critical role in managing more than $100 billion in public employee-pension funds, wield influence on Wall Street and how large corporations govern themselves.

Asked about reports that his time in the wilderness has made him more mature since he resigned as governor in March 2008, he laughed and said, “That may have been a low threshold.”

Spitzer told me he would be an activist comptroller who would attend stockholder meetings on occasion and offer his two cents, whether solicited or not, on who should be appointed to the boards of various corporations in which New York City’s pension funds hold stock. “In my book, I say that ownership trumps regulation and ownership trumps prosecution as a way to get good governance in corporate America,” Spitzer said.

via www.thedailybeast.com

When Spitzer gets elected and gets to run the NYC pension funds, the people (you know who they are) who claim that state and local pension funds are run by saints--not union thugs and Democrat pols--will have some explaining to do. Spitzer will be the highest profile political hack running a pension fund, but he's hardly alone. Spitzer will be the highest profile politician running a pension fund to benefit the Democrat Party, but he won't be the only one.

Spitzer Reveals Income, but Not the Tax Returns a Rival Sought

The Stringer campaign pointed out that Mr. Spitzer used to release his full returns every year.

In 2006, when he was the state attorney general and running for governor, Mr. Spitzer described it as “the right thing to do.” Last year, as a television political pundit, he asked why Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, would not release his tax returns.

“The old Eliot Spitzer supported stringent financial disclosure,” Mr. Stringer’s spokeswoman, Audrey Gelman, said. “Just as we’ve seen on his decision to abandon campaign spending limits he once supported, it’s increasingly clear that Eliot Spitzer believes there are two standards in public life — one for him, and one for everyone else.”

via www.nytimes.com

Eliot Spitzer finds 27K people with no moral compass

Eliot Spitzer needed 3,750 signatures needed to get on the ballot-- and he turned in 27,000. The former governor, who only announced his candidacy for comptroller on Sunday, had until midnight Thursday to file the signatures. Before his place on the ballot is assured, the names will be validated by the city's Board of Elections.

via occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com

More on Spitzer's hypocrisy

In this 2008 National Review article from the height of the scandal, just before he resigned, [Walter Olson] recalled how a key part of Spitzer’s “distinctively relentless style” was to demagogically personalize his prosecutions into crusades against “ ‘imperial’ CEOs — he did much to popularize the phrase — [who] had come to feel they were above the law… all talk of forgiveness for momentary lapses in judgment, of deference to uniquely valuable skill sets, and even of basic old-fashioned due process for the accused, were but excuses.”

via www.cato.org

"Talk of forgiveness for momentary lapses in judgment." Pot meet kettle.

Walter Olson: Eliot Spitzer Seeks Political Comeback

Disgraced ex-governor Eliot Spitzer has announced a surprise bid for New York City Comptroller, resulting in general merriment on Twitter and joy in the world of NYC tabloids (as well as more sober political analysis). In all seriousness, some of the prime memories to keep fresh about the 2008 scandal are: 1) Spitzer not only prosecuted those who engaged in the same behavior he was up to, but cynically led a public campaign for longer sentences for “johns”; 2) he engaged in the white-collar offense of structuring or “smurfing,” deliberately keeping financial transactions below a reportable threshold, after prosecuting others based on the same sorts of bank reports; 3) he then used expensive lawyers to beat the rap on both counts, even as smaller fry continue to be convicted for both; 4) from what I can tell – I invite correction if I’m wrong – he’s done approximately nothing in the years since to work toward relaxing or removing legal penalties for small-fry (or for that matter big-fish) johns and smurfers.

via www.cato.org

Larry Cunningham on Spitzer’s Unforgivable Character Flaw: Hypocrisy

While I object vehemently to the unethical practices Spitzer displayed while serving as attorney general, some people even now  applaud his zealotry when prosecuting and investigating financial powerhouses and rich and powerful individuals. But hypocrisy is a character flaw that cannot be forgiven or redeemed. I would not trust such a man to be dog catcher let alone put in charge of a city’s financial affairs.

New Yorkers would do well to recall this passage from the 2010 book by Peter Elkind about the disgraced politician (pp. 259-260):

Spitzer’s entire political strategy was based on his projection of an image as a moralist.   That he broke numerous laws, so furtively and mischievously, to engage in extramarital sex with young women blew his cover. He was not what he portrayed himself to be. At best, he was a hypocrite. His tactics in the cases he brought underscored that he was not, in fact, the devotee of the rule of law or proponent of justice he and his media friends projected. But in their zeal to condemn, Spitzer and his fans overlooked many principles of legal ethics designed to prevent prosecutors from harassing citizens and unfairly or wantonly destroying reputations.

via www.concurringopinions.com

Ex-NY Governors versus NY AG Eric Schneiderman re Hank Greenberg suit

In today's WSJ, former NY Governors Mario Cuomo and George Pataki make a bipartisan call for NY's current AG Eric Schneiderman to drop his suit against ex-AIG boss Hank Greenberg:

For the past eight years, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the former chairman and chief executive officer of the insurer AIG, has been futilely pursued by the New York attorney general's office under the 1921 Martin Act, which gave the state's attorney general extraordinary powers to investigate and litigate financial fraud.

The Greenberg civil litigation, however, concerns the accounting for two entirely proper transactions that took place well over a decade ago—neither of which had any impact on the net income or shareholder equity of AIG. Yet as Charles Dickens wrote of the fictional case Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in "Bleak House," this interminable "scarecrow of a suit," which should never have been brought in the first place, "drones on."

Recently, the New York attorney general's office recognized that under both state and federal law, the resolution of federal class actions brought by AIG shareholders had mooted the attorney general's stated purpose in the civil litigation against Mr. Greenberg: the recovery of damages on behalf of AIG shareholders. As a result, the attorney general's office informed the New York Court of Appeals on April 25 that it had decided to "withdraw our claims for damages in this case."

This acknowledgment was long overdue and should have marked the end of this case. So we were surprised to learn that instead of dropping the litigation, the attorney general's office has decided to deplete its resources and consume more of the court's time by raising claims for injunctive relief against Mr. Greenberg that were long ago abandoned and that, in any event, are without merit and serve no conceivable purpose. ...

Mr. Greenberg has never worked in the securities industry, and he hasn't been an officer or director of a public company for eight years. There is also no reason to suppose he intends to do so in the future. Simply stated, the attorney general office's pursuit of injunctive relief against Mr. Greenberg is a waste of time and money.

The continued pursuit of Mr. Greenberg is also morally wrong. From landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day to building one of New York's largest companies, Hank Greenberg has been a patriot who has played a vital role in advancing U.S. interests in global trade and national security. He is one of the country's most generous philanthropists. Even today, he continues those efforts for New York's benefit.

Go read the whole thing and then read Alison Frankel's take on their op-ed. She puts the issues in context by highlighting how they relate to an ongoing struggle between the NY AG and the plainitff class action bar:

The battle to recover damages on behalf of misled investors (and the right to claim credit for the recovery) is part of that interplay: In New York, whoever makes a deal first wins. ...

You can see why, as a policy matter, this kind of scenario is of concern: It permits a defendant to pick whom it wants to settle with. (Of course, that’s been a long-running argument by private plaintiffs’ lawyers when their class actions are co-opted by regulators.) 

I don't share Frankel's concern. The issue is not unique to NY AG actions. Whenever you have multiple suits filed over the same conduct, the first case to settle inevitably creates a res judicata effect.That's why defendants settle cases and why courts will allow out of state litigants to intervene and be heard in the hearing(s) the court holds before approving any settlement.

Instead, my concern remains with the Martin Act. As Walter Olson aptly observed back in 2004:

Why is New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer so feared by the state’s financial community? A major reason is a little-known piece of 1921 New York legislation called the Martin Act, aimed at financial fraud. “It empowers him to subpoena any document he wants from anyone doing business in the state; to keep an investigation totally secret or to make it totally public; and to choose between filing civil or criminal charges whenever he wants. People called in for questioning during Martin Act investigations do not have a right to counsel or a right against self-incrimination. Combined, the act’s powers exceed those given any regulator in any other state.

“Now for the scary part: To win a case, the AG doesn’t have to prove that the defendant intended to defraud anyone, that a transaction took place, or that anyone actually was defrauded. Plus, when the prosecution is over, trial lawyers can gain access to the hoards of documents that the act has churned up and use them as the basis for civil suits.” 

Lovely.

CNN sex scandal report omits Spitzer

Chris Ariens:

A TVNewser reader Tweeted at us today:

@tvnewser @HowardKurtz: Did CNN really exclude Spitzer from Malveaux package on Sex Scandals & Politics? Hmm..

The answer: yes it did.

Suzanne Malveaux‘s story, which aired at 2:30pmET, made mention or showed images of politicians ranging from John F. Kennedy to John Edwards; also former Governors James McGreevey and Mark Sanford, and former Sen. Larry Craig and current Sen. David Vitter, former Pres. Bill Clinton, and 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich — their private indiscretions made very public. But no mention of Eliot Spitzer who resigned as Governor of New York after it was revealed he had patronized a prostitution service. Spitzer now hosts CNN’s 7pm show “In the Arena.” We’ve learned the producer/editor on the story, who use their own judgment on what to use and what not to use, chose not to include Spitzer in the story.

Spitzer does appear on a CNN web site slideshow, but it's still a pretty egregious omission. After all, what Spizer did was actually illegal, not just unseemly, even if he caught a break from the prosecutors who decided not to charge him. Plus, of course, Spitzer was a prosecutor charged with oversight of criminal cases and the top law enforcement officer of the State of New York when some of the illegal shenanigans took place. So you could make a pretty good case that Spitzer's a worse offender than those who stories CNN decided were worth dredging up.