EndrTimes: REPORT: GOP OPERATIVE EXPOSED SPITZER

Monday, March 24, 2008

REPORT: GOP OPERATIVE EXPOSED SPITZER

Report: GOP operative exposed Spitzer

BY MICHAEL AMON michael.amon@newsday.com

9:52 PM EDT, March 23, 2008

The federal probe into Eliot Spitzer's alleged use of high-priced prostitutes took on a partisan tinge Sunday with news that a Republican political operative provided the FBI with salacious details of the former governor's trysts four months before he resigned.

In a Nov. 19 letter, an attorney for Roger Stone, once a consultant to Republican State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, said Spitzer had spent "tens of thousands" of dollars on prostitutes using prearranged financial transfers.

"It is also my client's understanding ... that Governor Spitzer did not remove his mid-calf length black socks during the sex act," wrote attorney Paul Rolf Jensen of Costa Mesa, Calif., to special agents in the FBI's New York field office. "Perhaps you can use this detail to corroborate Mr. Stone's information."

The letter was first reported in the Miami Herald on Saturday.

'It taints the whole thing'

Political observers said the involvement of Stone -- a Spitzer rival accused of leaving a menacing voice mail for the former governor's father, Bernard, last summer -- raised questions about the probe.

"It taints the whole thing," said Stanley Klein, a political science professor at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University and a Republican committeeman in Suffolk County.

"When you have dirty hands, whatever you touch is dirty," Klein said of Stone, who is no stranger to controversy.

It remained unclear whether Stone's tip played a role in the probe of Spitzer and the Emperors Club VIP prostitution ring broken up March 7. FBI spokesman James Margolin declined to comment, and U.S. attorney's office officials did not return a phone call.

However, a source familiar with the Spitzer probe said yesterday that it began well before the letter was sent. Sources have described the investigation as beginning in October with tips from banks that noticed unusual wire transfers between Spitzer's account and shell companies set up by the prostitution ring. Spitzer resigned March 13.

"It sounds like is trying to take credit for something," after the fact, another source said.

Credibility issue?

Stone is a longtime GOP operative who began his career working for Richard Nixon. In 1996, he resigned from Republican Bob Dole's presidential campaign when an ad seeking a sexual threesome with him and his wife was discovered in a Washington swingers magazine.

If the federal probe was triggered by Stone, "it provides a different lens to look at all of this," said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College. "Even though it doesn't absolve Spitzer of his behavior and the hypocrisy that that represented, it still calls into question the actions of the federal authorities."

The federal probe continues, with investigators poring over Spitzer's financial records to see if any money, in addition to the roughly $20,000 he spent on prostitutes employed by the New Jersey ring, was used illegally, the sources said.

Reached by phone, Stone declined to say much about the letter, except: "It was only a matter of time before got caught."

Stone's attorney passed on the information about Spitzer after Stone was approached by federal agents in the wake of the message left on Bernard Spitzer's voice mail in August, a source with knowledge of the matter said. Stone has denied leaving the message and declined to meet with the FBI.

The source said the FBI did not contact Stone about the letter. Stone was told of Spitzer's alleged use of Florida prostitutes by a call girl whom he was "chatting up" at the swingers club Miami Velvet in early September, the source said.

Press representatives for Spitzer could not be reached.

Staff Writers Robert Kessler and Ellis Henican contributed to this story.