Eliot Spitzer Resigns: "Sienna" Says He Paid For Sex While DA

Spitz quits as another call girl "Sienna" comes out of the wood work

Disgraced New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer, resigned Wednesday morning at approximately 11:45 am EST.  The resignation will not become effective until Monday at the request of Lt. Gov. David Paterson who needs time to put a transition team in place.

Spitzer began speaking at 11:45 am EST. "I cannot allow my private failings to affect the people's work."

Spitzer announced his resignation and his departure from public life (outside of politics).  The resignation would go into effect on Monday.

The news comes among revelations that Spitzer may have spent upwards of $80,000 of taxpayers money on high priced call girls.   Shockwaves spread over New York and much of the world Monday when Spitzer was potentially revealed as "Client 9", caught on a federal wiretap arranging for a high-priced call girl to be sent from New York to his Washington hotel.

The millionaire, married politician has been hopping into bed with harlots for as long as a decade and traveled as far as Florida for steamy trysts, sources told the New York Post Wednesday.

One of them, a 22-year-old call girl who goes by the name "Sienna" on her Web site, told ABC News that Spitzer paid her for sex two years ago when he was still attorney general.

He tipped big and "didn't do anything that wasn't clean," she added.

She said she did not know "Kristen," the hooker who brought the governor down, and referred further questions to her lawyer.

Spitzer, who in 2002 relentlessly threatened prosecution against banks involved with online gambling transactions, has surrounded himself with high powered attorneys and immediate family members.

Harvard University law professor and high profile defense attorney, Alan Dershowitz, called Spitzer "one of the smartest research assistants he ever had".  Dershowitz is currently representing Gary Kaplan, who in July 2006 was indicted for running the world's largest online sports betting operation, BetonSports.

When responding to reporter's questions about whether New Yorkers would be lenient on Spitzer, Dershowitz replies that prostitution is a victimless crime and Spitzer "prosecuted people on Wall Street who really hurt other people."

But Spitzer also prosecuted prostitution rings.

"When Dershowitz says Spitzer prosecuted people on Wall Street who really hurt other people, does that mean hurt by making people lose money and reputations?" Aly Adair of Associated Content asks.  "If this is true, didn't Spitzer just cost the people of New York about $4,300 an hour and the reputation of their Governor as being a high-dollar hooker? Some New York citizens are saying, "so what?" Silda and her three teenage daughters are probably not saying so what."

The feds might never have caught on to Eliot Spitzer's hooker-loving ways had the governor not second-guessed himself over payments he made to his pimp's bank account.

Last year, Spitzer wired more than $10,000 from a Manhattan bank account to a front company for the Emperors Club VIP, which hired out prostitutes to high-end clients, according to a newsday.com report.

But in an apparent effort to evade federal regulations requiring that transactions involving $10,000 or more be disclosed to the government, Spitzer broke up the money into a series of smaller transfers on numerous occasions over at least a year, sources said.

Despite that, Spitzer got worried that he could be tied to the transfers and asked the bank to remove his name from the transactions. The bank reportedly refused, not only because of regulations, but also because the money had already gone out.

The unidentified bank then notified the Internal Revenue Service, as required by law, that Spitzer had sent more than $10,000 in a way that appeared designed to avoid disclosure requirements, the report said.

A law-enforcement source told The Post yesterday that financial transactions are "the crux of the investigation" into Spitzer, and that federal probers do not yet know the full extent of his possible chicanery.

"They've got to go through the money trails," the source said.

In other words, the "Spitzer affair" may go beyond just lurid sex with prostitutes. 

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher CCostigan@CostiganMedia.com

Originally published March 12, 2008 11:00 am EST