Spitzer Met with Many Prostitutes, Lawyer Says
Posted: Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 pm
The lawyer of an escort service booker named Tameka Lewis has spoken out to say that former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer met regularly with prostitutes for a year and a half even before the eruption of the scandal that caused him to resign.
Marc Agnifilo, attorney for Lewis, spoke out earlier this week to say that his client, who pled guilty to conspiracy charges in May 2008, was sentenced but received no jail time after having cooperated with prosecutors. Lewis provided the government with information detailing Spitzer’s involvement with the Emporers Club V.I.P. Escort services, including methods of payment, locations of hotels where meetings took place, the aliases Spitzer used, the names of the women he saw, and approximate dates of the trysts.
Her cooperation helped prosecutors determine that the then-governor had not used campaign or government money to pay for the prostitutes, and therefore would not be criminally charged.
Agnifilo did not specify how many times Spitzer met with the escorts, but did say that his patronage of the Emporers Club service spanned 18 months and occurred in several cities. “There was a regularity to it,” Agnifilo stated, adding that “the full truth put his involvement with the Emporers Club at more than sporadic.”
Upon being asked if it was possible that Spitzer had hired most of the more than a dozen escorts employed by the service, Agnifilo nodded in affirmation.
Lewis was one of the agents who arranged meetings between the politician and the prostitutes, including the one who recognized him as the governor of New York after seeing him on television. Lewis, 33, is a University of Virginia graduate and worked at the service from October 2006 to March 2008.
The Emporers Club, which had a website advertising the women’s services, charged up to $5,500 an hour. Authorities claim that Spitzer, who used aliases, including “George Fox,” when he met with the women, had spent up to $80,000 on the pricey prostitutes.
Three other former employees of the service were also charged in the scandal, and have been sentenced already. The owner of the service, Mark Brener, received 2 ½ years in prison. Cecil Suwal, its manager, was sentenced to six months’ jail time. Another former booking agent, Tanya Hollander, received a year’s probation.
Spitzer resigned from office in disgrace in March 2008, after the scandal broke.
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