Spitzer

[WSJ_law_blog]

Do Consensual Acts Warrant Federal Prosecution? A main legal issue surrounding Eliot Spitzer is whether federal prosecutors will go after him at all. A second: if they do, what will they charge him with? One theoretical possibility, as we alluded to yesterday: a violation under The Mann Act, which provides: “[w]hoever knowingly transports any individual in interstate or foreign commerce . . . with intent that such individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned . . . . ” Commentators aren’t so sure this approach would fly. Michael Bachner, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office, told the WSJ: “The Mann Act really was designed more towards those who get someone to travel against their will. . . . If Spitzer gets indicted, it would seem to me he would be indicted based on who he is rather than what he’s done.”



A Crime Called Structuring: According to Spitzer coverage in today’s NYT, one law enforcement official said that discussions soon to be held between Spitzer?s lawyers and federal prosecutors, will likely focus not on prostitution, but on how it was paid for: Whether the payments from Spitzer to the prostitution service were made in a way to conceal their purpose and source. That could amount to a crime called structuring, reports the NYT, for which the maximum penalty is five years in prison, and a fine. “If structuring is committed along with another crime,” reports the NYT in a second piece, “or if more than $100,000 is involved over a year ? which seems unlikely in this case ? the penalties can be doubled.” It may not be that unlikely. After all, the all-day rate for a “seven-diamond” prostitute from the Emperor’s Club was $31,000. (Click here for another report on the “structuring” aspect from ABC News, and here for the word from Talking Points Memo.)



What Happens if Spitzer Testifies? Of the four individuals named in the criminal complaint, two were charged with a conspiracy to violate federal laws related to prostitution, while the other two face charges of prostitution and money laundering. Then there’s Client 9, believed to be Spitzer. Over at the White Collar Crime Prof blog, the authors wonder: “Will Spitzer need to be a witness in the case against the four individuals charged with conspiracy, prostitution, and money laundering? Will he be given immunity?” In the federal system, the authors write, this would be “use” immunity as opposed to “transactional immunity,” which means that anything Spitzer said, or anything derived from what he said, could not be used against him. (Click here for an American Lawyer piece that fleshes out Spitzer’s legal landscape, and here for another from the NY Sun.)



“Silda is poised; Eliot is a maelstrom”: That’s a line that Mad Money Jim Cramer (pictured, right), a law school friend of Spitzer and his wife, Silda Wall (pictured, left), gave to the NYT in a 2006 article about Wall’s new job as the first lady of New York. In the piece, Spitzer said: ?I rely on her very much as someone to talk to in order to resolve a tough issue. What length of sentence to ask for, how severe a fine should be. They come down to questions of what is just and fair.? Wall, a North Carolina native, graduated from Meredith College, before heading to Harvard Law. In 1982, after her second year, Wall was married to Peter Stamos, a fellow law student who was also a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford — for 29 days. The reason for their separation was never made public. Wall, who worked at Chase bank, and then at Skadden, told the NYT: ?It was a very exciting time to be doing mergers and acquisitions, the whole poison pill era.” As a Skaddenite she routinely billed about 3,200 hours a year. She recalled her share of successive all-nighters, and trying to catch an hour?s sleep underneath a conference room table, ?because you couldn?t turn out the lights in the office.? (Click here for this morning’s New York Post piece about how Wall sacrificed her career for Spitzer.)

Beloved Law Blog readers, let’s keep the robust discussion going. Putting aside, for the moment, the issue as to whether Spitzer will resign, do you think he’ll be charged by the feds?