Gov. Spitzer resigns over call-girl scandal

Gov. Spitzer resigns over call-girl scandal

Spitzer will be succeeded by Lt. Gov. David Paterson.

NEW YORK (AP) — In a startlingly swift fall from grace, Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned Wednesday after getting caught in a call-girl scandal that made a mockery of his straight-arrow image and left him facing the prospect of criminal charges and perhaps disbarment.

“I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people’s work,” Spitzer said, his weary-looking wife, Silda, standing at his side, again, as the corruption-fighting politician once known as Mr. Clean answered for his actions for the second time in three days.

He made the announcement without securing a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, though a law enforcement official said the former governor was still believed to be negotiating one. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Spitzer will be succeeded on Monday by Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a fellow Democrat who becomes New York’s first black governor and the nation’s first legally blind chief executive.

The resignation brought the curtain down on a riveting three-day drama — played out, sometimes, as farce — that made Spitzer an instant punchline on late-night TV and fascinated Americans with the spectacle of a crusading politician exposed as a hypocrite.

His dizzying downfall was met with glee and the popping of champagne corks among many on Wall Street, where Spitzer was seen as a sanctimonious bully for attacking big salaries and abusive practices in the financial industry when he was New York attorney general. And his resignation brought relief at the state Capitol in Albany after days of excruciating tension and uncertainty.

The scandal erupted Monday after federal law enforcement officials disclosed that a wiretap had caught the 48-year-old father of three teenage daughters spending thousands of dollars on a call girl at a fancy Washington hotel on the night before Valentine’s Day.

Investigators said he had arranged for a prostitute named Kristen to take the train down from New York while he was in the nation’s capital to testify before a congressional subcommittee about the bond industry.

Law enforcement officials said the governor had hired prostitutes several times before an had spent tens of thousands of dollars, and perhaps as much as $80,000, on the high-priced escort service Emperors Club VIP, whose women charge as much as $5,500 an hour.

Senior Spitzer aides, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Spitzer had been informed Friday by federal prosecutors that he was linked to the prostitution ring.

Spitzer first shared the news Sunday with his wife at their Manhattan apartment, and after several excruciating hours, they told their daughters, the aides said. By Sunday evening Spitzer had called top advisers, personal friends and loyalists.

The little band huddled in the apartment until midnight.

It was a spectacular collapse for a man who cultivated an image as a hard-nosed politician hell-bent on cleansing the state of corruption.

He served two terms as New York attorney general, earning the nickname “Sheriff of Wall Street,” and was elected governor with a record share of the vote in 2006. The tall, athletic, square-jawed Spitzer was sometimes mentioned as a potential candidate for president.

But he also made powerful enemies, many of whom complained that he was abusive and self-righteous.

Barely known outside of his Harlem political base, Paterson, 53, has been in New York government since his election to the state Senate in 1985.

Though legally blind, he has enough sight in his right eye to walk unaided, recognize people at conversational distance and even read if the text is placed close to his face.

While Spitzer was famously abrasive, uncompromising and even insulting, Paterson has built a reputation as a conciliator.