The Rise and Fall of Client 9 - Documentary on Eliot Spitzer

[james t kirk]

Just read that Eliot Spitzer has ended his marriage (or his wife probably did, either way, it's splitsville for Eliot)

Anyway, was reading the article in the Globe and Mail and there was a link to a documentary movie called, "The Rise and Fall of Client No. 9" which was Eliot Spitzer's code name at the Escort Agency he preferred in NYC (The Emperor's Club.)

So, I decided to see if it was available on Youtube (it is, but you need to rent it for $3.99), so I went for it.

Great Documentary.

Now, full disclosure, I always liked Eliot Spitzer when he was on CNN. I found him to be very intelligent, well spoken, and he truly knew how to interview and he would never allow his inteviewees to run flank around a question, or use the opportunity of being on CNN to pontificate.

Anyway, if you want to watch a great documentary involving politics, sex, betrayal, revenge, and just plain a tragic fall from grace, this one is your opportunity.

Very well done doc. In a nutshell, Eliot pissed off a lot of very very powerful people on Wall Street and in Albany NY and they got him. They knew that we all have weaknesses and very very few of us are able to meet the ideals of "the perfect man". Eliot was and is no exception to that rule. He could be a good guy, a champion and protector of the little guy, and he could be a vindictive prick. In the end, his moral ambiguity, or some might say his real humanity was his undoing.

At the end of it all, IMHO, he should never have resigned. He may well have lost the next election, but on the other hand, maybe he would not have. (Bill Clinton survived it, but then again, I think Clinton had (has) this connection (as an intellectual heavy weight) to the average guy (probably because he grew up on just this side of "dirt poor") that Spitzer never did and never will. Eliot is also an intellectual heavy weight, but I don't think he connects to the average Joe, though he certainly does empathize.

If you're into politics, sex, power, and "i'll show you" - then this one is for you.

 

[afterhours]

As attorney general and leader of the state's organized crime task force, Spitzer spearheaded the prosecution of two alleged prostitution rings, according to the Times.

But Spitzer’s moralistic crusade against paid sex (by non-Spitzers, at least) wasn’t confined to New York or even the United States of America. As far as Spitzer is concerned, he has the right to prevent people from exchanging cash for cuddles anywhere in the world.

Big Apple Oriental Tours was a Queens-based travel agency with an angle: it marketed vacations for men to destinations such as Angeles City, Philippines, a jurisdiction in which adult prostitution is nominally illegal but is condoned and regulated by the government because of the money it brings in. The militant feminist group Equality Now had been agitating for prosecution of Big Apple Oriental Tours since at least 1996, but had never found a prosecutor willing to take the case. (Big Apple Oriental Tours has never been linked to child prostitution, which would be another matter entirely.)

In 2003, attorney general Spitzer, with one eye on the feminist vote and the other on the governor’s mansion, commenced a campaign of legal harassment against the tour company, obtaining a civil injunction prohibiting the company from advertising, which effectively put it out of business, according to owner Norman Barabash.

Spitzer then brought criminal proceedings against Barabash and co-owner Douglas Allen that continue to this day. The first indictment was dismissed because prosecutors improperly relied upon a hearsay tape recording. The second indictment was dismissed because the facts alleged did not constitute a felony, leaving only a misdemeanor charge of promoting prostitution in the fourth degree, a crime so penny-ante it applies to doormen or bouncers. The third indictment was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, according to Barabash, and is currently before the appellate court. After all that harassment, there's been no trial.

While Spitzer’s crusade may seem overzealous and, based on what we now know, disturbingly Freudian, his attempt to apply domestic laws to conduct outside the country isn’t that far outside the current legal mainstream. The mother of all extraterritorial laws, the 1977 U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to bribe a foreign official, regardless of where the bribery took place.

Libertarians are understandably of two minds about L’Affaire Spitzer. On the one hand, a dedicated public servant will probably lose his job, and may be indicted, due to consensual liaisons and payments that should be a private matter completely outside the ambit of Justice Department wiretaps. On the other hand, Spitzer’s been hoisted by the moralistic petard that he can regulate any and all sexual behavior with which he disagrees, wherever it occurs. As Barabash said Monday, “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

http://reason.com/archives/2008/03/11/spitzers-hypocrisy-worse-than

 

[Aardvark154]

Afterhours you've hit the nail on the head. As I stated at the time this all broke back in 2008, it wasn't his seeing escorts that was the problem (save of course for his family), at least as far as I was concerned, it was the hypocrisy which is discussed in your post which was the problem.

 

[TheShadow]

And this is the same guy that paid $5k for a butt ugly escort?
She saw him coming a mile away!

 

[james t kirk]

And this is the same guy that paid $5k for a butt ugly escort?
She saw him coming a mile away!

The woman he was caught with was definitely average at best. Yet in the documentary, they play her up as some sort of uber hot young woman. I'm watching it and thinking, "she would be $200.00 an hour back pages girl in Toronto" The ironic thing was that Spitzer had called for his regular, she was not available and so they sent this new girl. It wasn't the girl or the agency that ratted him out. He had very powerful enemies. VERY POWERFUL, and he had pissed them off. It would appear that they hired a private detective to tail him and they hit pay dirt. They then used their connections in the Bush Administration (justice department) to bring him down and ruin him. They interviewed these guys - and they were laughing at him.

Spitzer is no different than every other guy on this board. He loves women and it's his weakness. (I would think that we could relate.)

 

[Aardvark154]

The woman he was caught with was definitely average at best. Yet in the documentary, they play her up as some sort of uber hot young woman. I'm watching it and thinking, "she would be $200.00 an hour back pages girl in Toronto" The ironic thing was that Spitzer had called for his regular, she was not available and so they sent this new girl. It wasn't the girl or the agency that ratted him out. He had very powerful enemies. VERY POWERFUL, and he had pissed them off. It would appear that they hired a private detective to tail him and they hit pay dirt. They then used their connections in the Bush Administration (justice department) to bring him down and ruin him. They interviewed these guys - and they were laughing at him.

Spitzer is no different than every other guy on this board. He loves women and it's his weakness. (I would think that we could relate.)

JTK, actually what caught him up was being a public official. He was making lots of cash withdrawals and deposits from separate accounts in an attempt to hide the activity from his wife (so far a familiar story). However the FBI has a Public Integrity Office which deals with the corruption of and blackmail of elected officials. The Bank reported the Governor's frequent cash transactions (which they wouldn't have had to for someone who was not an elected public official) and the rest of the story you know - the FBI discovered not blackmail but the escorts.

 

[james t kirk]

JTK, actually what caught him up was being a public official. He was making lots of cash withdrawals and deposits from separate accounts in an attempt to hide the activity from his wife (so far a familiar story). However the FBI has a Public Integrity Office which deals with the corruption of and blackmail of elected officials. The Bank reported the Governor's frequent cash transactions (which they wouldn't have had to for someone who was not an elected public official) and the rest of the story you know - the FBI discovered not blackmail but the escorts.

They covered that in the movie too. There are literally millions of cash transactions every day in the USA.

How was it that he got singled out?

He tripped up, no doubt about that. He should have avoided the wire transfers and just used cash.

Either that, or visited Toronto a lot more and had better looking women at a fraction of the price.

 

[Aardvark154]

They covered that in the movie too. There are literally millions of cash transactions every day in the USA.

How was it that he got singled out?

Right there in my post, being an elected public official such that the FBI thought he might be being blackmailed - taking a significant amount of money out of his account in cash on a regular basis.

 

[james t kirk]

Right there in my post, being an elected public official such that the FBI thought he might be being blackmailed - taking a significant amount of money out of his account in cash on a regular basis.

Or, another theory, which I buy into,

Spitzer as "the Sherriff of Wall Street" who took on greed and corruption in Wall Street (especially in such places as AIG) severely pissed off guys like former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg, former New York Stock Exchange chief Ken Langone and powerful political consultant Roger Stone.

Langone (founder of Home Depot) and Greenberg set out to destroy Spitzer and they found his weakness - women.

 

[rafterman]

There's no doubt he pissed off a lot of Wall Street scammers and it's a shame that he fell from grace because a lot of the parasites he pursued deserve to be in jail IMHO. I'm actually surprised his marriage survived as long as it did although I would guess it was in appearance only. I have very mixed feelings about the guy though because of his breathtaking hypocrisy on the sex file.

 

[afterhours]

Spitzer is no different than every other guy on this board. He loves women and it's his weakness. (I would think that we could relate.)

I could relate to people whom he prosecuted for prostitution.

Or, another theory, which I buy into,

Spitzer as "the Sherriff of Wall Street" who took on greed and corruption in Wall Street (especially in such places as AIG) severely pissed off guys like former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg, former New York Stock Exchange chief Ken Langone and powerful political consultant Roger Stone.

Langone (founder of Home Depot) and Greenberg set out to destroy Spitzer and they found his weakness - women.

And if they did destroy him, kudos to them.

 

[james t kirk]

There's no doubt he pissed off a lot of Wall Street scammers and it's a shame that he fell from grace because a lot of the parasites he pursued deserve to be in jail IMHO. I'm actually surprised his marriage survived as long as it did although I would guess it was in appearance only. I have very mixed feelings about the guy though because of his breathtaking hypocrisy on the sex file.

Sure, he's a hypocrite, but then again, aren't we all?

He looked at it from the point of view of getting a few votes, so he went after the sex industry. In the states, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. (Hell, municipal politicians in Toronto do it every minute.)

Anyway, I feel sorry for Eliot getting busted and losing everything. It would seem that middle America is not yet ready to forgive Eliot since he recently ran for City of New York Comptroller and lost even that.

Pity. I like the guy.

 

[afterhours]

Sure, he's a hypocrite, but then again, aren't we all?

He looked at it from the point of view of getting a few votes, so he went after the sex industry. In the states, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. (Hell, municipal politicians in Toronto do it every minute.)

Anyway, I feel sorry for Eliot getting busted and losing everything. It would seem that middle America is not yet ready to forgive Eliot since he recently ran for City of New York Comptroller and lost even that.

Pity. I like the guy.

Sorry, this logic escapes me.
He prosecuted people who are innocent by his own standards, as well as your standards and mine.
I hope they have a special place in hell for people like that.

 

[Aardvark154]

Sorry, this logic escapes me.
He prosecuted people who are innocent by his own standards, as well as your standards and mine.
I hope they have a special place in hell for people like that.

+ 1

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