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Eliot Spitzer's Escort Service

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from: Timothy Noah

Posted Monday, March 10, 2008, at 6:40 PM ET

Read more of Slate's coverage of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal.

The New York Times revealed earlier today that Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York arranged last month to meet a prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. The prostitute worked through a high-priced, multinational escort service called Emperors' Club VIP, which was named in a felony complaint unsealed on March 6. (To read the complaint, click here.) The Emperors' Club's Web site was taken down that same day, but Slate was able to retrieve a couple of cached pages (see below and Page 2).

The Emperors' Club termed itself a "social introduction service" that promised "private, risk-free dating" with "beautiful, educated companions of fine family and career backgrounds" to persons of "immense financial and influential affluence" (see below). The prostitutes were moonlighting "fashion models, pageant winners, and exquisite students, graduates, and women of successful careers (finance, art, media, etc.)." Areas of operation included Manhattan and the Tri-State area, Los Angeles, Miami, London, and Europe (see Page 2). Before the Emperors' Club Web site disappeared into the ether, the Smoking Gun Web site was able to copy some additional pages, including one featuring photographs of some of the women on offer, operating under noms de guerre like Sienna and Daniella (see Page 4).

The Smoking Gun also obtained a copy of an FBI affidavit related to the case (see Page 3). This document includes a wiretapped conversation between "Rachelle" and "Kristen" (not pictured in the Smoking Gun's menu, alas) concerning "Client-9," whom the Times identifies as Spitzer. Kristen told Rachelle that she collected $4,300 from Client-9 and said, "I don't think he's difficult. I mean it's just kind of like ... whatever." Rachelle answered that she'd heard otherwise. Client-9, she'd been told, "would ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe—you know—I mean that ... very basic things." Kristen replied, "I have a way of dealing with that ... I'd be like, 'listen, dude, you really want the sex? ... You know what I mean."

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hot document
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from: Timothy Noah

Posted Monday, March 10, 2008, at 6:40 PM ET
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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
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