Having served as the Governor of New York, a two term New York State attorney general and six years as a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, it appeared that the Bronx born and Harvard educated Eliot Spitzer had solidified a prestigious career in public service.
After all, he earned a national reputation as the “Sheriff of Wall Street” as Spitzer went head to head with bigwigs like AIG’s Hank Greenberg, the New York Stock Exchange’s Richard Grasso and billionaire Ken Langone, a co-founder of Home Depot who said he hopes Spitzer’s “private hell is hotter than anybody else’s.”
That was not to be the case, however, in the years that followed Spitzer’s dark side emerged as he was eventually implicated in a high-priced call girl scandal in 2008 and an extortion scandal in 2016.
Following his father Bernard’s illness and death in 2014 and with politics behind him, Spitzer came to lead his family’s real estate business, Spitzer Enterprises, despite having avoided the role for much of his life, as was reported by Wikipedia.
According to a report in the Real Deal, Spitzer Enterprises built iconic properties such as 200 Central Park South and 800 Fifth Avenue — the luxury apartment tower overlooking Central Park that Spitzer now calls home.
Spitzer sold his company’s apartments in The Corinthian and the Crown Building in Manhattan for a large profit, which he used to fund a $700 million project of three waterfront buildings in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
According to a March 2019 article in Forbes magazine, “the three-tower development, named 420 Kent for its addresses at 416 and 420 Kent Ave., has 857 apartments, along with 20,000 square feet of retail space, and has been move-in ready since January, with finishing touches still being added to its amenities.”
Forbes added that it was designed by the New York-based ODA Architecture, which has projects in the United States, Canada and Europe, including several others in Brooklyn, such as Pier 6 at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The firm is known for its avant-garde approach, and 420 Kent is no exception, with a multidimensional, cubist aesthetic wrapped in glass, as was reported by Forbes.
The Dark Side
On March 10, 2008, The New York Times reported that Spitzer had patronized a high-priced escort service called Emperors Club VIP and met for two hours with a $1,000-an-hour call girl. This information originally came to the attention of authorities from a federal wiretap, according to a Wikipedia profile. During a six month span, Spitzer had at least seven or eight liaisons with women from the agency and paid more than $15,000. According to published reports, investigators alleged that Spitzer paid up to $80,000 for prostitutes over a period of several years while he was attorney general, and later as governor.
Spitzer first drew the attention of federal investigators when his bank reported suspicious money transfers under the anti-money laundering provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act. The resulting investigation was triggered by the belief that Spitzer might have been hiding bribe proceeds and led to the discovery of the prostitution ring. His FBI code name was “Client No. 9”
On March 10, Spitzer held a press conference apologizing to his family and to the public. He added, “’I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family’”
Following Spitzer’s March 10 press conference, New York State Assembly Republican Minority Leader James Tedisco and Republican New York Congressman Peter King separately called for his resignation. Tedisco later announced that he would initiate impeachment proceedings in the State Assembly if Spitzer did not resign.
Spitzer abruptly resigned from office two days later in a story that became a tabloid sensation, as was reported by the Real Deal.
In February 2016, Spitzer was investigated by the New York City Police Department after being accused of assault by Svetlana Travis-Zakharova, a woman from Russia, in an incident that supposedly occurred at the Plaza Hotel on February 13, 2016. The New York Daily News reported Spitzer had been accused of attacking the woman, who tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists after the incident. Ms. Travis subsequently recanted her accusations and no charges were filed.
Within a month, Travis − who left for Russia in February − turned from an alleged victim into a suspect. On October 10, she was arrested upon landing at JFK International Airport. On October 12, Travis-Zakharova, 26,faced state charges of grand larceny by extortion, while also being investigated for prostitution. Over two years, prosecutors claimed, she had collected around $50,000 from Spitzer in exchange for keeping “intimate details” of their relationship secret from his relatives. The money was allegedly deposited into a bank in Russia, as was reported by Wikipedia.
Also on October 12, Travis faced forgery and identity theft charges, from an unrelated incident, after purportedly signing a high-end apartment lease under a different name, costing the victim − a 67-year-old New Jersey man − $18,000. The bail was set at $1 million.
