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She left a broken home on the Jersey Shore at 17 and came to New York City to work the nightclubs as a rhythm and blues singer. Now, at 22, she is the unwitting, and as yet unseen, star of the seamy drama that is the downfall of Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York.

Kristen, the high-priced prostitute described in a federal affidavit as having had a rendezvous with Mr. Spitzer on Feb. 13 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, has spent the last few days in her ninth-floor apartment in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. On Monday, she made a brief appearance in federal court, where a lawyer was appointed to represent her. She is expected to be a witness in the case against four people charged with operating a prostitution ring called the Emperor’s Club V.I.P.

In a series of telephone interviews on Tuesday night, she said she had slept very little over the past week, with all the stress of the case.

“I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster,” the woman said as she told the tiniest tidbits of her story.

Born Ashley Youmans but now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupré, she spoke softly and with good humor as she added with significant understatement: “This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated.”

She has not been charged.

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True to form, political journalists are towing the “boys will be boys” and “the leak was political” party line. Likewise, Alan Dershowitz’s statements about Spitzer, his former research assistant, occupied a crowning position in a March 11 New York Times article:

“Men go to prostitutes — big deal, that’s not a story in most parts of the world,” Mr. Dershowitz said.

But he also said he had been surprised when Mr. Spitzer prosecuted a prostitution ring in 2004. “I always thought he was somebody who would come down on crimes with real victims,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “Prostitutes aren’t victims — they’re getting paid a thousand dollars an hour, and the johns aren’t victims. What upset me the most was that they wiretapped thousands of e-mails and phone calls. In an age when terrorism needs to be stopped, they’re devoting these kinds of resources to a prostitution ring?”

What’s wrong with this picture?

Liberal apologists seeking to normalize Spitzer’s behavior are forced to resort to the same lies about prostitution indulged by Dershowitz. They ignore the fact that by defending men’s right to paid sex with women, they applaud the atrocious exploitation of the same sorts of market inequalities they decry when the victims are blue-collar workers.

Long duped into believing that treating the sex industry as legitimate work will foster a more “humane prostitution” while satisfying natural, male impulses, such liberals deny prostitution’s well-documented harms. In fact, the condescension that allows the confounding of prostitution with legitimate, but unpleasant labor betrays a strong bias, both against workers and against women. - Source

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Spitzer spoils it for Clinton. Another woman he's let down.

[ 12 March 2008: Message edited by: mary123 ]

WHAT do we know about the woman Gov. Eliot Spitzer allegedly hired as a prostitute? She was the one person he ignored in his apology. What is she going through now? Is she in danger from organized crime because of what she knows? Is anyone offering her legal counsel or alternatives to prostitution?
"I'm here for a purpose," she said in a conversation with her booking agent after meeting with Governor Spitzer, according to the affidavit of the F.B.I agent who investigated the prostitution ring. "I know what my purpose is. I'm not a ... moron, you know what I mean."
Her purpose, as a man who knew patiently explained, is "renting" out an organ for 10 minutes. Men rent women through the Internet or by cellphone as if they were renting a car. And now, in response to the news about Governor Spitzer, pundits are wading into the age-old debates over whether prostitution is a victimless crime or whether women are badly hurt in prostitution no matter what they're paid.
Whose theory is it that prostitution is victimless? It's the men who buy prostitutes who spew the myths that women choose prostitution, that they get rich, that it's glamorous and that it turns women on.
But most women in prostitution, including those working for escort services, have been sexually abused as children, studies show. Incest sets young women up for prostitution -- by letting them know what they're worth and what's expected of them. Other forces that channel women into escort prostitution are economic hardship and racism.
The Emperor's Club presented itself as an elite escort service. But aside from charging more, it worked like any other prostitution business. The pimps took their 50 percent cut. The Emperor's Club often required that the women provide sex twice an hour. One woman who was wiretapped indicated that she couldn't handle that pressure. The ring operated throughout the United States and Europe. The transport of women for prostitution was masked by its description as "travel dates."
Telephone operators at the Emperor's Club criticized one of the women for cutting sessions with buyers short so that she could pick up her children at school. "As a general rule," one said, "girls with children tend to have a little more baggage going on."
Whether the woman is in a hotel room or on a side street in someone's car, whether she's trafficked from New York to Washington or from Mexico to Florida or from the city to the suburbs, the experience of being prostituted causes her immense psychological and physical harm. And it all starts with the buyer.

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"Whose theory is it that prostitution is victimless?.."
Um, to many of the women who do it, that's not just a theory. Do their voices matter at all? Unlike you, Ms. Farley, we actually have some experience to base our perspective on and we understand the realities of the sex industry better than you ever will...

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[ 12 March 2008: Message edited by: SubHuman ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
That's what he gets for trying to give Wall Street a black eye. He's lucky they didn't have him stuffed in an oil drum and floated to Ireland, or thrown out a tenth story window.

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Anything else is inconsistent, to put it mildly.

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Spitzer's problem is that he was a foe of the sex trade, so from that point of view, he was rightly hoist on his own petard.

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Exactly. He built his career on, among other things, prosecuting people over prostitution. He destroyed reputations and careers by charging people for doing exactly what he was doing. He definitely shouldn't get off any easier than the people he indicted.

As far as his treatment of Wall Street, he was abusive and high handed and used illegal tactics there as well. But that's not what they got him for.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
He's human and has human desires and needs. And so Spitzer frigs around on the side. They were probably watching him for months on end and making notes of his routines, his appetites, and always the very human weaknesses for sure. I bet plan-b was that he suicided himself or maybe hit by a car while crossing the street. Oh, but accidentally of course. I don't doubt Spitzer enjoys recreational sex. Maybe he was setup?

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[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: triciamarie ]

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Originally posted by triciamarie:
Aside from the ten diamond hypocrisy of this thing, what I don't understand is, where the hell did he get all that money on an ongoing basis? How much did this guy make as a governor? Was he paying market rates for those services, or what?

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He is the son of a very, very wealthy real estate developer. In essence, he's a trust-fund baby.

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In the court papers, an Emperors Club employee was quoted as telling Kristen that Client 9 — Spitzer, according to investigators — "would ask you to do things that ... you might not think were safe," and Kristen responded by saying: "I have a way of dealing with that. ... I'd be, like, listen, dude, you really want the sex?"

A law enforcement official said Tuesday the discussion had to do with Spitzer's preference not to wear a condom and the call-girl's insistence that he use one.

Spitzer's vast personal wealth would have made it easy for him to spend thousands of dollars on prostitutes. The scion of a wealthy Manhattan real estate developer, Spitzer reported $1.9 million in income to the IRS in 2006.

Spitzer may have spent big on call girls

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Originally posted by writer:

Maybe Kristen should run to take Spitzer's place. She seems to be the most sensible person involved.

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She does sound like she has overcome a lot. Perhaps this exposure will help her music career.

If I were her, and didn't know about the prostitutes and was still having unprotected sex with him, I'd be getting tested for STDs immediately. And if I had caught ANYTHING from him, I'd be suing his nasty ass.

BTW, this is not to imply that he'd be any more likely to get an STD from a prostitute than from anyone else. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you were LESS likely to catch something from a prostitute since they're likely a lot more up-front about safe sex. But if he's succeeding in finding sex trade workers who will have unsafe sex, then chances are they're doing that with other clients who want that too, in which case it's just as likely that he'll wind up with an STD as if he was being promiscuous with non-sex trade workers.

[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Well, that's lovely. Not only might he have duped his wife, but also put her at risk for STDs by trying to get away with not wearing a condom while doing it.

If I were her, and didn't know about the prostitutes and was still having unprotected sex with him, I'd be getting tested for STDs immediately. And if I had caught ANYTHING from him, I'd be suing his nasty ass.

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Most definitely. I still cannot understand his wife and her desire to stand up there with him and be humiliated. She follows in a long line of political wives who just smile and take it.

An interesting point was made in the Globe I believe today, that it is a recent phenomenon for politicians cheating to become pulic knowledge and/or cause their careers to end.

[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by Ghislaine:
Perhaps JFK would still be around had his cheating gone public and his career been ruined?

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Originally posted by Fidel:
They caught him having sex.

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Originally posted by Ghislaine:

Most definitely. I still cannot understand his wife and her desire to stand up there with him and be humiliated. She follows in a long line of political wives who just smile and take it.

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[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: mary123 ]

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Originally posted by Khimia:
The Spitzer family fortune is estimated to be about 500M. That may be one reason why his wife has chosen to remain at his side thus far. The rich are different from u and I after all

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[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by Ghislaine:

Very true... although wouldn't she be entitled to 50%... especially with aldultery?

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[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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Originally posted by Ghislaine:
Most definitely. I still cannot understand his wife and her desire to stand up there with him and be humiliated. She follows in a long line of political wives who just smile and take it.

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Very true... although wouldn't she be entitled to 50%... especially with aldultery?

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[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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McGreevey (She's the now ex-wife of former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey and she stood by his side back in 2004, as he publicly confessed to having a gay love affair with one his workers. He resigned and the couple later divorced) makes it clear Spitzer's wife was placed into the no-win spot in a matter of hours and hopes the woman with the law degree from Harvard isn't judged too harshly by the public. She was seen walking off stage after his admission of wrongdoing, holding his hand.

But McGreevey warns looks can be deceiving. "I was criticized for standing there," she remembers. "Hillary Clinton was criticized for standing there with her husband. We all do it for very personal reasons," adding that most keep their children at the top of their priority list in situations like this.

"You don't know what it's like unless you're in the person's shoes," she concludes.

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[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: mary123 ]

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Originally posted by MCunningBC:

For some people, this is a major beef they have with Hillary Clinton. I don't share that beef myself, but I do hear it brought up.

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CNN interviewed Dina Matos McGreevey, asking her why she stood up there to be “humiliated”. Her answer was interesting and fair.

She says it has nothing to do with “standing by her man” – and has everything to do with standing by the father of your children. What the guys did was an act against their her and their marriage, and killed not only their relationships and their careers but when the dust settles you still have family issues to work through.

She says it’ll be eaisier for your kids to still love/respect their father who did wrong by them, to make amends for it. These men aren’t evil, dishonest and disloyal – yes, but what are you going to do with them when everyone else has lost interest?

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March 13, 2008
Do As He Said
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

The last time I saw Eliot Spitzer, he encouraged me to write about his work involving prostitution. So here goes.
The governor buttonholed me because he wanted credit for passage of a tough state law against sex trafficking. Frankly, he deserves credit, for the law took the innovative step of cracking down on johns by increasing penalties.
The big worry now among those working to stop trafficking is that the Spitzer scandal will add to perceptions of prostitution as a "victimless crime." (...)
Yet the evidence is overwhelming that, in the United States, prostitution is only very rarely just another career choice. Studies suggest that up to two-thirds of prostitutes have been sexually abused as girls, a majority have drug dependencies or mental illnesses, one-third have been threatened with death by pimps, and almost half have attempted suicide.
Melissa Farley, a psychologist who has written extensively about the subject, says that girls typically become prostitutes at age 13 or 14. She conducted a study finding that 89 percent of prostitutes urgently wanted to escape the work, and that two-thirds have post-traumatic stress disorder -- not a problem for even the most frustrated burger-flipper.
The mortality data for prostitutes is staggering. The American Journal of Epidemiology published a meticulous study finding that the "workplace homicide rate for prostitutes" is 51 times that of the next most dangerous occupation for women, working in a liquor store. The average age of death of the prostitutes in the study was 34.
"Women engaged in prostitution face the most dangerous occupational environment in the United States," The Journal concluded. (...)
We're not going to end the world's oldest profession, any more than we'll ever end the world's oldest crime, murder. But mounting evidence from around the world suggests that a demand-side crackdown would drive some pimps to peddle pirated DVDs instead of pubescent flesh - and that would be a positive legacy of Governor Spitzer's tenure that might balance its tawdry hypocrisy.

Comment on this column on my blog at: www.nytimes.com/ontheground.

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I first saw Dina McGreevey on Oprah and she struck me as the ultimate Stepford wife. She was the humiliated one always smiled by her husbands side. She seemed like someone who married for the thrill, the lifestyle and all the perks that come with marrying a political star. No wonder these types of women don't want to leave even when humiliation ensues.
Even Oprah had trouble comprehending how she could stick with him after all the humiliation he put her thru (especially the creepy smiling part).

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"I smiled because I didn't want to break down. But, as his world was falling apart, he was still choreographing the entire day and how everything would play out. [He] told me when to smile, what to say if I was asked a question by reporters," she says.

"He was telling me what to do, and he said, 'You have to be Jackie Kennedy today,'" she says. "And I'm thinking, 'Jackie Kennedy—her husband was murdered. You lied and cheated on me, and I have to be Jackie Kennedy?'"

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Oprah and I have a zero tolerance for male stupidity I guess.

Oprah interviews Dina former Stepford wife.
~~~~~
Here's the direct link to why the (creepy) smile and on the next page why did you attend the news conference?

[ 13 March 2008: Message edited by: mary123 ]

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Originally posted by mary123:
Guêpe while I can sympathize with these women caught in a no win situation when children are involved there's something to be said for standing up for yourself against the egotistical narcissistic self indulgences of a man who should know better and still disrespects you and your children.

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Incredibly, immediately after the scandal was exposed in the tabloid, Deayton showed up for work and tried to host the show as usual. Didn't really work out and what resulted is one of the most infamous, funniest, and most uncomfortable, half hours ever in British television. When asked a few years later if he'd stabbed Deayton in the back, Merton replied "no we stabbed him in the front").

Part 1:

code:

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Part 2:

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Part 3

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Originally posted by Ghislaine:

Very true... although wouldn't she be entitled to 50%... especially with aldultery?

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Not necessarily. In most states, only “marital assets” get split in a divorce. “Marital assets” are assets that are accumulated during a marriage. Wealth from his family would likely be excluded.

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Originally posted by Sven:

No, they didn’t just catch him “having sex”. If it was merely an affair, he’d still be governor. Instead, he very likely broke a series of laws over a long, long period of time.

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Originally posted by Sven:

If it was merely an affair, he’d still be governor. Instead, he very likely broke a series of laws over a long, long period of time.

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I thought that if you're the governor then it's not breaking the law. Or i guess that only applies to the president.

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
Maybe we are following the age-old tradition of expecting wives to act as moral arbiters and to pass judgment when we don't, our way of treating men's lies and abuses of the law as "a private matter" when committed in a sexual context.

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Originally posted by Guêpe:
CNN interviewed Dina Matos McGreevey, asking her why she stood up there to be “humiliated”. Her answer was interesting and fair.

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I didn't see this interview, but it's good to know she gave a great reply.

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Originally posted by Guêpe:
She says it has nothing to do with “standing by her man” – and has everything to do with standing by the father of your children.

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Investigative reporter Greg Palast reveals a link between the subprime mortgage scandal and the massive bail-out of the culprits by the Bush administration a few days ago.
The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

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While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money. (...)

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Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion, was among the first to be charged under the act. In 1913, he was accused of ostensibly transporting a prostitute from Pittsburgh to Chicago. Johnson was convicted and given the maximum sentence: one year and one day. Critics, however, believe that Johnson's case was racially motivated — the "prostitute" was his white girlfriend.

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
So this is a men's rights issue, that to ship/import women across State lines when it suits their fancy...

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I think Elizabeth Smart sees it differently. Her book "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept" is a fictionalized account of her ordeal.

No, the point is it's an arcane law designed to enforce the concept any sexual relationship outside of marriage is immoral (particularly if it involves a Black man and a white woman).

[ 14 March 2008: Message edited by: aka Mycroft ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
So this is a men's rights issue, that to ship/import women across State lines when it suits their fancy...

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Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

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This is pretty serious news... Spitz could have saved so many American homeowners from this suffering. He could have stopped the crisis before it got bad.

Now, Bush bails out the banks and leaves the people without homes to live in, while those homes sit empty. What use it that.

[ 15 March 2008: Message edited by: mary123 ]

Friday 14 March 2008

Four years ago, an academic economist named Ben Bernanke co-authored a technical paper that could have been titled "Things the Federal Reserve Might Try if It's Desperate" - although that may not have been obvious from its actual title, "Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Investigation."

Today, the Fed is indeed desperate, and Mr. Bernanke, as its chairman, is putting some of the paper's suggestions into effect. Unfortunately, however, the Bernanke Fed's actions - even though they're unprecedented in their scope - probably won't be enough to halt the economy's downward spiral.

And if I'm right about that, there's another implication: the ugly economics of the financial crisis will soon create some ugly politics, too.

To understand what's going on, you have to know a bit about how monetary policy usually operates.

The Fed's economic power rests on the fact that it's the only institution with the right to add to the "monetary base": pieces of green paper bearing portraits of dead presidents, plus deposits that private banks hold at the Fed and can convert into green paper at will.

When the Fed is worried about the state of the economy, it basically responds by printing more of that green paper, and using it to buy bonds from banks. The banks then use the green paper to make more loans, which causes businesses and households to spend more, and the economy expands.

This process can be almost magical in its effects: a committee in Washington gives some technical instructions to a trading desk in New York, and just like that, the economy creates millions of jobs.

But sometimes the magic doesn't work. And this is one of those times. (...)

[ 15 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

It continually amazes me that powerful people have such an arrogant blind spot regarding their vulnerability to political payback.

Spitzer attempted to make a political name for himself at the expense of very powerful people. it is not by coincidence that the present treasury secretary, Henry Paulson and past secretarys come to the position directly from CEO positions in the Wall Street financial industry.

The fix is in but thank the sky fairy for George W. Bush. With his single-minded pursuit of Pax Americana, he and his cabal of like-minded devotees of American global pre-eminence have reduced American influence in the global pecking order.

Dubya is responsible for the deficits that will make the US a third world economic state in future. The hidden costs of his reckless spending will soon appear. Unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare will drive these programs into insolvency at the time that American program spending must be reduced.

Guess which program spending? It won't be defense.The drastic reduction in US government fiscal capacity will be the grounds for a neo-con assault on social programs and the average American will suffer badly.

No matter what sleazy back door liquidity injections the federal Reserve donates to the moneyed class on Wall Street,the coming derivatives implosion will doom American financial global domination and ALL of the forced clients of Pax Americana will be very happy to push the monster over the edge,contrary to public meowings of support.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I think if I was Eliot Spitzer discovering how hopelessly corrupt Wall Street is, I might tend wonder if there was any point to working for the good guys, or if team good guy even exists anymore. Gotham City needs Batman and Robin to clean it up.

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
Nicholas D. Kristof comments on the scandal in the New York Times.

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... "studies show." Which studies are those? Malarek doesn't say in the text. And there is no footnote...

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Swedish street prostitution did indeed go down immediately after the law came into force in 1999, the report said. Numbers soon stabilized, although at a level lower than before. But the working group also noted that it was uncertain how much prostitution there was off-street and so it wasn't clear whether the law pushed prostitutes indoors, or, worse, into dark streets hidden from the eyes of the police.

What was certain is that the law had unintended consequences. "The police informed us that it is more difficult to investigate cases of pimping or trafficking in human beings because prostitution does not take place so openly on the streets anymore," the working group reported. Street prostitutes are "probably" more dependent on pimps as a result of the law. Overall, the working group concluded, the law "has made working as a prostitute harder and more dangerous."

Weasels like Spitzer only enable a more sophisticated form of demeaning others. Its not about sex,its about power and control- hence the pimp's reference to kinky requests from Spitzer- Spitzer doesn't want kinky sex,he wants the prostitute to submit to him so he can get off on the power trip,not the sex.

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Originally posted by jester:
While there are undoubtedly opportunistic individuals who will choose to engage in prostitution for their own reasons,I doubt that anyone with a healthy self-esteem will choose to demean themselves if other options are available.

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Originally posted by RosaL:

I've had lots of jobs that no one with a healthy self-esteem would choose if there were other options available. I do think that prostitution is often near the end of the "demeaning job" continuum. On the other hand, it usually pays a lot better.

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...Maybe his wife, Silda was too much woman for him and the chump has to buy his power trips.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Thank you, Subhuman, for that spirited defence of the prostitution industry.

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Originally posted by SubHuman:

Odd that the prohibitionists are opposed by those they claim to be protecting.

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You seem to be conflating decriminalising the activities of sextrade workers with support for the practice of prostitution.

[ 16 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by jester: ...The process of decriminalising prostitution acknowledges that sex trade workers are victims...

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Our profession is legitimate and necessary and is here to stay. It's about time the federal government deal with this in an intelligent and mature fashion.

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ChezStella.org

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Decriminalization...
This would mean we could no longer be arrested because of the work we do, or because of how we market what we have on offer. Basically, what that means, is that anyone doing any type of sex work would be considered in the same way as any other self-employed worker. She would have the same rights and responsibilities as any other self-employed worker from any other field! We would be protected by the same laws as those regulating and protecting other workers. It would mean sex work and other fields are equal and would help remove stigma from our work.

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...I have met hundreds of men who have paid for sex. Some seek any kind of sex; others want certain kinds of sex; a few look for comfort and conversation.

Saying that all sex workers are victims and all clients are demons is the easy way out. Perhaps it's time to face this fact like adults... with a little less moralizing and a good deal more honesty.

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[ 16 March 2008: Message edited by: SubHuman ]

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Originally posted by jester:

Eliot Spitzer wasn't working for the good guys,Eliot Spitzer was working for Eliot Spitzer.

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Ayn Rand said in the 1960's, "Businessmen are the symbol of a free society-the symbol of America. If and when they perish, civilization will perish."

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Gotham City needs Batman and Robin to clean it up.

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A former driver and aide to former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey yesterday made the bombshell claim that Dina Matos McGreevey must have always known her husband was gay - because he was the other man in bed with them.

. . . .
"It's frustrating to hear her call Gov. Spitzer a hypocrite while she's out there being as dishonest as anyone could be about her own life," said Pedersen, 29.

"She's framed herself as a victim - yet she was a willing participant. She had complete control over what happened in her relationship," he said. "She was there, she knew what was happening, she made the moves. We all did. It's disgusting to watch her play the victim card."

The trio's trysts started after Pedersen was hired as a campaign driver when McGreevey was mayor of Woodbridge, NJ, the former chauffeur said.

"We called it the Friday Night Special," Pedersen said. The "intense" escapades, he said, usually began with a "couple of drinks" at a local T.G.I. Friday's and culminated in "a hard-core consensual sex orgy" between the three of them at McGreevey's Woodbridge condo.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Maybe they're not having sex anymore anyhow. Who knows? All I'm saying is that if he put her at risk, he's scum.

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She's a high-priced call girl. Spitzer's wife can take some comfort in knowing he doesn't fool around with just anybody. Still, I don't approve of what Sven refers to as this trust fund baby's lifestyle.

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As a formerly prostituted child and young adult, I disagree that prostitution should be legalized. Prostitution is an industry of sexual exploitation, predominately of women and youth. Prostituted women and youth are raped, beaten, and otherwise tortured by pimps and johns. A study in Canada reveals that prostituted women and girls have a 40% higher mortality rate than non-prostituted women and girls. Also, women-of-color are disproportionately used in prostitution. Many of the women don't have high school educations. Many of the women end up with severe physical, mental, and emotional disabilities after being in prostitution. Another study reports that prostituted women have higher rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder than war veterans. Most prostituted women and youth are coerced into prostitution by poverty, racism, lack of opportunity, and drug and alcohol addictions. The vast majority are primed to be used by pimps and johns because they were abused in the home as children. The average age of prostitution is thirteen-years-old in the U.S. and even lower in other countries. This means that the average prostituted woman has been abused for five years when she turns that "magical" age of eighteen and then supposedly "chooses" to be a whore. Another study conducted with thousands of prostituted people by Melissa Farley states that 89% of the prostituted people interviewed wanted to get out of prostitution immediately. This backs up what those of us used in prostitution know from experience: prostitution is organized rape and battery of women and youth and the vast majority of those in it want out now.

The U.S. should not legalize prostitution. Studies in countries where prostitution is legal reveal that when prostitution is legalized international and domestic trafficking into the area increases, child prostitution increases, and the women are actually treated worse because the state sanctions prostitution which explicitly lends support to the johns who become more violent. Prostitution must remain illegal, but that does not equal support of the status quo. The status quo targets the prostituted women and youth, the victims of prostitution, while typically protecting the pimps and johns. What we need are better laws that treat those who use, rape, batter, and kill prostituted women and youth as sexual predators. We also need direct services for prostituted women and youth. Prostituted women and youth know that men like Spitzer are not an anomaly. Wealthy, powerful men use and sell prostituted women and youth in this country all the time. He just happened to get caught.

Christine Stark, Co-editor of Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography

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How dare the sex workers actually speak up for themselves, particularly when they disagree with those who disingenuously claim to be helping them.

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Hmmm...disingenuous huh?

Is claiming that sex trade workers should be considered victims disingenuous or are claims of support for the sex industry by self-interested profiteers who may be predators of vulnerable individuals or victims of manipulation themselves disingenuous?

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March 14 (Bloomberg.com) -- However riveting the reading, turn away for a moment from those pages in the FBI affidavit concerning ``Client 9'' and ``Kristen.''

Flip over to Page 15, where the man accused of running the Emperors Club VIP talks with two employees about a difficult prostitute in Los Angeles.

She had missed an appointment the night before and left a ``crazy'' text message, says Rachelle Lewis, an alleged booker for the club.

The three wonder aloud whether she is using drugs.

``A lot of these girls deteriorate to this point,'' remarked Lewis.

Now, why would these girls deteriorate? We are not talking about streetwalkers trolling dark corners for $20 encounters.

The women of the Emperors Club surely knew what they were doing and were happy to rake in big bucks to spend time with wealthy, powerful men. Even a governor! Of New York, no less.

Like the women the so-called D.C. Madam claimed to send out to clients looking for sexual fantasy, they are classy, independent women, not victims of brutalizing pimps who drug them, rape and beat them, indeed, who own them.

Surely the glamorous women the Emperors Club sent to the best hotels in New York, Paris, London and wherever their fat-wallet clientele travels, are nothing like those destitute girls from starving, distant villages sold by their families or lured by promises of a better life in America only to find themselves sex slaves.

So, what's with the deterioration?

If any form of prostitution is victimless, surely it would be the sort that authorities say operated out of the Emperors Club VIP.

If that libertarian streak in you screams out that the government shouldn't be policing this perfectly harmless, very intimate, inevitable and ancient activity, I understand. (...)

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[ 17 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

U.S. Defends Tough Tactics With Spitzer

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The scale and intensity of the investigation of Mr. Spitzer, then the governor of New York, seemed on its face to be a departure for the Justice Department, which aggressively investigates allegations of wrongdoing by public officials, but almost never investigates people who pay prostitutes for sex.

A review of recent federal cases shows that federal prosecutors go sparingly after owners and operators of prostitution enterprises, and usually only when millions of dollars are involved or there are aggravating circumstances, like human trafficking or child exploitation.

Government lawyers and investigators defend the expenditure of resources on Mr. Spitzer in the Emperor’s Club V.I.P. case as justifiable and necessary since it involved the possibility of criminal wrongdoing by New York’s highest elected official, who had been the state’s top prosecutor.

Bradley D. Simon, a veteran Justice Department trial lawyer who was federal prosecutor in Brooklyn throughout the 1990s, said that although it was rare for the department to use so many resources on the workings of a prostitution ring, the involvement of such a high-level politician must change the equation.

“If they’ve got some evidence of a high-ranking public official involved in violations of federal criminal code, it may not be unreasonable for them to pursue it,” he said. Still, he said, “I don’t think prostitution has been a high priority at the Justice Department.”

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"There he hoes again!"

[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Doug ]

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The information Stone provided was very detailed - right down to the calf-length black socks Spitzer allegedly wore while bedding his paid paramours.

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Calf-length black socks!? He wore them during sex!?

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Originally posted by Michelle:
God, what a rag that is, huh? "Busty bottle blonde."

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Four months before a hooker scandal brought down Eliot Spitzer, controversial Republican operative Roger Stone tipped the FBI to the governor's penchant for prostitutes.

The information Stone provided was very detailed - right down to the calf-length black socks Spitzer allegedly wore while bedding his paid paramours

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Stone is one of the biggest sleazes in the political world. Not surprised he was involved, particuarly given the feud Stone had with Spitzer's father.

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This is a message for Bernard Spitzer. You will be subpoenaed to testify in front of the Senate committee on investigation on your shady campaign loans. You will be compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms, if you resist, you will be arrested and brought to Albany - and there's not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho piece of s--- son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth. The fact that your son is a pathological liar will be known to all.

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