Spitzer kept quiet till forced to confess

He kept the shame over the prostitution situation to himself as long as he could.

NEW YORK (AP) — Eliot Spitzer finally had to tell someone his secret.

It was last Sunday morning, and he had just spent five hours driving through a fierce storm to his family and his Fifth Avenue apartment.

Until then, the law-and-order New York governor had not dropped a hint of the bombshell that was about to force him from office, not a strained word during public appearances Friday in Manhattan or glad-handing the media at a Saturday dinner in Washington.

But shortly after entering his luxurious high-rise building a little after noon, Spitzer faced his wife of two decades, Silda, and he had to tell her:

The “Mr. Clean” ex-prosecutor known for fighting corruption and taking the moral high ground was to be outed as a client of a $5,500-an-hour prostitution ring. After a few hours alone, they broke the news to their three teenage daughters.

A day later, the scandal went public. Two days after that, his career would be officially finished.

Spitzer’s secrets began to unravel last year when banks tipped Internal Revenue Service agents to something strange going on with his accounts, authorities said. His money transfers were setting off red flags.

The case was referred last fall to federal prosecutors, who came to believe that Spitzer may have spent tens of thousands of dollars transferring money between accounts to pay for prostitutes, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

The first public hint of Spitzer’s downfall was dropped in a federal court in Manhattan on March 6. Four people were charged with running a prostitution and money-laundering ring called Emperors Club VIP.

It was clear this was more than a run-of-the-mill prostitution bust. The prosecutors assigned to the case were headed by the U.S. attorney’s public corruption unit, which generally looks at cases involving elected officials. None of the prostitution ring’s clients was named, but the 47-page document detailed dealings with 10 of them — identified only as Clients 1 through 10.

On pages 26 through 31, “Client 9” — who law enforcement officials say is Spitzer — was described as being caught on a wiretap Feb. 12 and Feb. 13, ordering a tryst with a prostitute at Washington’s Renaissance Mayflower Hotel.

Three weeks later, on March 7, a federal official told Spitzer he was implicated in the call-girl case.

The next day, a Saturday, Spitzer went back to Washington for the 123rd annual Gridiron Club dinner, the party for journalists and political personalities. The governor, in white tie and tails, mingled with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, filmmaker Ken Burns and Chief Justice John Roberts.

After breaking the news to his family, Spitzer summoned his closest advisers, Lloyd Constantine and Richard Baum. Spitzer thought his career was over, said aides, all speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity.

“He thought he should resign from the very beginning,” one aide said. “It was really family and others’ suggestion that he should hang on.”

Monday morning, Spitzer was visited by his sister Emily, an accomplished attorney. A half-dozen personal and political advisers were told. So was Michele Hirshman, a criminal defense attorney and his former deputy attorney general.

Aware that the New York Times was close to posting a story about the investigation, Spitzer scheduled an announcement at his midtown Manhattan office. At 2 p.m., a headline flashed across the top of the Times’ Web site: “Spitzer linked to prostitution ring.”

More than an hour later, a pale, watery-eyed Spitzer took his wife before national TV cameras, bit his lip and apologized.

He didn’t say then what he was apologizing for, or what he would do next.

It took less than an hour for the first Republican to call for his resignation; others soon talked of impeachment.

By Tuesday, more details had seeped out. A law enforcement official said Spitzer was a repeat customer of the Emperors Club, paying up to $80,000 over an extended period.

Serious criminal charges were possible: soliciting sex; violating the Mann Act, the 1910 federal law that makes it a crime to induce someone to cross state lines for immoral purposes; and arranging cash transactions to conceal their purpose.

One poll said 70 percent of the state wanted him to step down.

On Wednesday, national TV showed a motorcade carrying the Spitzers back to the same conference room he used for his announcement two days earlier.

Reading a statement calmly, Spitzer ended his career, opening the way for Lt. Gov. David Paterson to become the first black governor of New York.