Manhattan Prosecutor Asks to Be Recused From Spitzer Inquiry
 |
| Cyrus R. Vance Jr. |
The
Manhattan district attorney has moved to recuse himself from the criminal
investigation into an allegation that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer assaulted
a 26-year-old woman at the Plaza Hotel, saying the close ties between his
office and Mr. Spitzer had created an apparent conflict of interest.
The
district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., made a
formal request on Wednesday to the deputy administrative judge for New York
City courts to have the case transferred to the district attorney’s office in
another borough, Mr. Vance’s aides and court officials said. The request was
expected to be granted, but the judge, Fern A. Fisher, had not taken action by
Wednesday night.
Mr.
Vance’s request comes as the investigation has hit a wall, law enforcement
officials said. The woman, who initially said she had been choked by Mr.
Spitzer, declined to press charges and has since left the country, these
officials said on Wednesday.
 |
| Eliot Spitzer |
“We
are at a standstill now, absent a complainant,” said Stephen P. Davis, the
deputy commissioner of public information for the New York Police Department.
“If she would change her mind we would have to reconsider, but what we would
have to have is her telling us what happened and saying she wants to press
charges.”
Mr.
Spitzer resigned as governor of New York in 2008 after it came to light that he
had patronized prostitutes.
 |
| Travis divorced her husband, Michael, in 2013, but kept his last name. |
The
investigation into the alleged assault began on Saturday about
8:05 p.m., when the woman, Svetlana Zakharova Travis, called the police from a
hotel room and said she had cut her wrist, the authorities said. When the
officers arrived, they found Mr. Spitzer in her room. There were bloodstains
and broken glass on the floor.
Mr.
Spitzer’s lawyer said he had a previous relationship with Ms. Travis. At her
request, he had booked the room for her and had visited her on Saturday
afternoon, talking with her about her plans to return to her native Russia, the
lawyer, Adam Kaufmann, said.
Because
she was bleeding from her arm, Ms. Travis was taken to Mount Sinai West,
formerly St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where she told nurses and
doctors that Mr. Spitzer had attacked her, officials said. Hours later, at the
Midtown North Precinct station house, she told detectives that Mr. Spitzer had
pushed her down on a bed and choked her, but then said she did not want to
press charges, law enforcement officials said. She departed on a flight to
Russia on Sunday.
Ms.
Travis’s decision not to press charges has not ended the inquiry, police
officials and prosecutors said. Having executed search warrants, detectives are
still reviewing telephone and computer records related to the case, one law
enforcement official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he
was not authorized to discuss the case.
Through
his lawyer, Mr. Spitzer has denied he assaulted Ms. Travis. He maintains Ms.
Travis even sent him an email on Monday, stating that her report to the police
was “all fake,” and swearing, on the contrary, that Mr. Spitzer had tried to
save her from a suicide attempt.
“Ms.
Travis has recanted any claim of an assault, and made it clear, in fact, that
Eliot tried to assist her,” Lisa Linden, a spokeswoman for Eliot Spitzer, said.
“We are confident that whoever looks at the facts will reach the same
conclusion.”
Officials
in Mr. Vance’s office said the ties between the former governor and the office
were too close to erase doubts about impartiality. Some of Mr. Vance’s top
aides, including his deputy chief of staff and his executive assistant, were
top aides to Mr. Spitzer when he was governor. Mr. Spitzer’s daughter also
worked for the office as a paralegal.
Beyond
those connections, Mr. Spitzer has had a long relationship with the office
itself, having started his career there as a prosecutor in 1986. The former
governor was also a political ally of Mr. Vance, both Democrats. In 2007, for
instance, he appointed Mr. Vance to the New York State Commission on Sentencing
Reform.
Joan
Vollero, a spokesman for Mr. Vance, said the district attorney did not believe
there is a direct conflict of interest that would make it impossible for his
assistants to do their jobs. “However, due to Mr. Spitzer’s personal and
professional connections to this office, we have decided to seek recusal to
avoid any appearance of impropriety,” she said.
Correction:
February 18, 2016
An
earlier version of this article misstated the year that former Gov. Eliot
Spitzer appointed Cyrus R. Vance Jr. to the New York State Commission on
Sentencing Reform. It was 2007, not 2009.
Spitzer’s work was as reckless as his private life
One of the more effective, albeit disingenuous, narratives of the American left goes something like this: The business community is evil and must be punished for the sins it has committed or may yet commit.
Its popularity on the left is growing, egged on by President Obama, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and radical Sen. Elizabeth Warren — even at times by Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
But they weren’t the ones who mainstreamed it. No, I’m afraid, the modern equivalent of this demagoguery comes from a darker, more ambitious and more volatile place: the mind of Eliot Spitzer.
Yes, the former New York governor and state attorney general — when he was known as the “Sheriff of Wall Street” — has been in the news a lot the last couple of days afterpolice responded to a complaint that he allegedly choked Svetlana Travis, 25, at the Plaza Hotel over the weekend. Spitzer denied the choking incident, and Travis has left the country for her native Russia without filing charges.
Whatever you make of this episode (the woman is less than half his age with an apparently spotty employment record), it’s fair to say it isn’t Spitzer’s lone lapse of judgment. Aside from his crazy behavior as governor (remember how he was accused of using state police to spy on a political opponent?), who can forget the reason he was ultimately forced out of office: a federal sting operation that caught him having sex with a hooker in Washington, DC.
This rendezvous, as I pointed out in this paper back in 2013, was paid for in part by New York’s taxpayers because the ex-gov muscled his way into a congressional subcommittee meeting and used state resources to cover his travel expenses.
(Spitzer paid for the hooker himself.)
But these are mere symptoms of Spitzer’s larger disorder: recklessness that manifests itself not just in his personal life, but in his professional one as well, where he continually pursued political prosecutions against all reasonable evidence.
This is something voters should consider whenever they hear Warren or Sanders parrot their Spitzer-inspired bile on the campaign trail, or when another ambitious prosecutor looks to make his political bones on the backs of the business community with nebulous evidence.
Or if Spitzer, as he did just a couple of years ago, attempts to return to public life.
Of course, Spitzer didn’t invent the idea of using Wall Street prosecutions as a springboard to higher office. Indeed, the great Mayor Rudy Giuliani used that playbook as US attorney and we were lucky to have him.
But Spitzer did reach new heights in his self-aggrandizement and new lows in basing many of his prosecutions as attorney general on nebulous evidence that resulted in failed cases — something that has become a benchmark for the left ever since.
On his watch there were lots of press conferences and left-wing media adulation as he threw mud at his targets — but none of his top white-collar bad guys went to jail. Those who fought back often had success.
Maybe the most blatant example came in 2005 when Spitzer accused Hank Greenberg of using shady accounting to gin up profits at the insurer he ran, AIG. Forget for a moment that Greenberg denied the charges and the numbers involved were picayune; the hoopla eventually forced Greenberg to resign and sent the company into management disarray.
Spitzer didn’t seem to care. He used the AIG case to propel himself into the governor’s mansion in 2007 while taking to the airwaves to label Greenberg a “fraud” even before filing any charges.
Eventually, a far worse financial calamity would hit AIG. The new, Greenberg-less management ramped up so much risk at AIG, the company’s insolvency became one of the triggers for the 2008 financial crisis.
And as for the case against Greenberg: It exists as a shell of what Spitzer initially brought with nearly all the charges having been dropped. The 90-year-old Greenberg maintains his innocence and has sued Spitzer for libel, for good measure.
As far as I’m concerned, the tribulations of Spitzer’s personal life are a mere symptom of a broader dysfunction of reckless, ends-justify-the-means politicking that, I’m afraid, is here to stay.
Thank you, Eliot.
Charles Gasparino is a Fox Business Network senior correspondent.
No comments:
Post a Comment