Eliot Spitzer resigns and joins sex scandals rogue gallery

Another American politician named and shamed for visiting prostitutes.

Eliot Spitzer is fighting to avoid charges after his resignation.

Investigators were already probing thousands of dollars in checks that Spitzer wrote to QAT, the paper reported, citing sources it did not identify. Schwartz was deported to Brazil last night, the Post said.
Authorities also will examine Spitzer's bank, credit-card and other records dating to 1999, an inquiry that could take months, the Post reported, citing a law-enforcement source.
Spitzer may be open to charges that he violated the Mann Act, which makes it a crime to transport someone across state lines for prostitution, lawyers said.
He could also be charged with wire fraud, if he made false statements about the source or destination of his funds; structuring, if he made payments to avoid U.S. requirements on reporting cash transactions of more than $10,000; or money laundering, if he knew the ring was using front companies to move money illegally, the lawyers said.

David Segal blames Spitzer's behaviour on the primal brain of homo politicus.

New York's got nothing on Tehran.
The day after New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's announced resignation for involvement in a prostitution ring, comes word that the police chief in Tehran -- yes, Iran -- has resigned following his arrest, naked, in the company of six nude prostitutes in a brothel, overseas wires are reporting.

Yvonne Fulbright, makes some interesting points on Power and Prostitutes: Why Powerful Men Can't Help Themselves.

The story emerging around the fall of Eliot Spitzer suggests that the case did not start with the report of a crime. Rather it started with a decision to look into Spitzer and his financial dealings. In the course of an open-ended investigation, information about a prostitution circle surfaced. That looks abusive. An investigation like that provides no basis to acquit Spitzer. But it suggests that when his case is done, the public should be pressing some tough questions about why this investigation was launched and pushed forward.

Specifically, the official narrative suggests that a Long Island bank noticed an odd pattern of payments made by Spitzer between different accounts. The payments were not enormous sums and the bank is said to have been concerned that a large number of transfers were made so as to fall below the $10,000 reporting threshold. The Los Angeles Times reported that Spitzer asked that his name be taken off the money wires, which reportedly aroused suspicion. The bank submitted a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) to the IRS. The payments which totaled up to $80,000, looked suspicious, we are told, and were examined on the basis that they might be an effort to money-launder bribes. This was reported to the IRS in Hauppauge, Long Island, which in turn involved the Public Integrity Section in the Department of Justice.

Two more questions should be asked about the prosecution. The first is whether a selective attitude is taken in prosecution - that is, whether the Justice Department is treating Spitzer in a manner consistent with other (notably Republican) figures caught in a similarly compromised position. The second is how the matter was broken to the press. On each of these points, the information now available raises unsettling issues about the conduct of the Justice Department. One close parallel involving a prostitution investigation is the case of the "D.C. Madam." In that case, federal prosecutors have proceeded against the prostitution ring and have shown little interest in the customer list, which is said to include a former high-ranking Bush Administration official (Randall Tobias, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development) and a U.S. Senator (David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana). The prosecutors' conduct in the "D.C. Madam" case has been remarkably deferential to the public figures involved. That case cannot be squared with the investigation into Governor Spitzer - it points to a double standard.

More from the sex scandals rogue gallery:David Vitter paying the price of hypocrisy.

Randall Tobias and the long arm of justice.

Why should the Duke be any different.