Spitzer Out Of Office, In Big Legal Trouble

New York’s scandalous, hooker-addict governor may be out of public office but his legal problems are far from over as he faces a series of charges that could send the Ivy League graduate to prison.

After a puffy-eyed Eliot Spitzer delivered his resignation speech assuring that he would always feel remorse for hiring prostitutes, the United States Attorney in New York assured that there was no deal to protect the shamed politician who spent at least $80,000 to hire hookers over a decade. There had been lots of speculation that Spitzer, a two-term attorney general, was negotiating a deal before resigning.

But U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, New York’s top federal prosecutor, issued a statement clearing the record after Spitzer’s resignation. It read, in part: “There is no agreement between this office and Governor Eliot Spitzer, relating to his resignation or any other matter.”

Garcia was an assistant prosecutor in the office he now heads before being named assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In 2005 he was appointed by the president to head the Justice Department’s New York office. As an assistant U.S. Attorney he prosecuted some of the nation’s highest profile terrorism cases, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombings and the1998 al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

Now he must tackle this high-profile case against a popular Democrat who has been treated gently and kindly by the mainstream media. Spitzer faces charges for money laundering (trying to conceal the source and receipt of financial transactions), tax evasion (a known party to an all-cash business that didn’t file taxes), importing a prostitute across state lines (from New York to Washington D.C.) and possibly misuse of taxpayer dollars if he used his state-issued credit card for any of the rendezvous. Oh, let’s not forge soliciting prostitution.