Legal News

An Alleged Evening with Client Nine, A Look at the Mann Act

By Dan Slater

L’Affaire Spitzer continues to unfold, but we thought we’d send over these two tidbits, just to keep the fires stoked.

First, Law Blog colleague Laurie Cohen earlier today put together this encapsulation of the complaint involving the prostitution ring, unsealed last week by the federal government in the Southern District of New York:

FBI agents investigating a New York-based prostitution ring caught New York Governor Eliot Spitzer on a federal wiretap last month arranging to meet a prostitute at a Washington D.C. hotel, believed to be the Mayflower Hotel, according to a federal complaint unsealed last week. Although Spitzer is not named in the complaint, a person familiar with the situation confirms he was one of the clients referenced.

According to the complaint filed against four defendants charged with running a prostitution ring that charged rates of as much as $5,500 an hour, the first evidence of Spitzer’s dealings with the ring occurred on February 11, when one of the defendants, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, asked to be informed when a “package” of money from a person identified in the complaint as “Client-9” and believed to be Spitzer, arrived.

Though the money apparently still hadn’t arrived on February 12, Lewis called a prostitute who used the name “Kristen” to book a trip to from NYC to D.C. The client, believed to be Spitzer, would pay for everything – “train tickets, cab fare from the hotel and back, mini bar or room service, travel time and hotel.”

The next day, February 13, Kristen was told that the money had arrived and that she should go to NYC’s Penn Station, where she would take an Amtrak train to D.C. That afternoon, Spitzer called Lewis and said he expected to have an appointment at “10:00 pm or so,” and asked who would be serving him. When told it was Kristen, he replied “great, okay, wonderful.” The client arrived shortly after 9:36 pm according to the complaint, and left soon before 12:02 am. Spitzer apparently paid “Kristen” $4,300 before he left.

Many are asking, why and how the Feds have involved themselves in a prostitution charge, normally a state offense.

• Daniel Steven Parker, the lawyer who’s representing Cecil Suwal, the 23-year-old woman accused of heading the prostitution ring, says his client will plead not guilty, but that she has never met Spitzer. “You have to wonder why the feds are looking at this,” he says. “As a general rule, I’d think the federal government has better things to do than prosecute prosecution rings.”

• Federal prosecution of prostitution-related offenses are rare, Michael Bachner — a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office — told the WSJ. He said to the extent Spitzer is charged it would likely be under the Mann Act, which prohibits transportation of people across state lines with the intent to commit prostitution.

  But “the Mann Act really was designed more towards those who get someone to travel against their will,” Bachner said. “If Spitzer gets indicted, it would seem to me he would be indicted based on who he is rather than what he’s done. Those who frequent prostitutes are very, very rarely the subjects of a federal prosecution when clearly it’s commercial and consensual.”

  As for possible state charges, he said “customers are rarely prosecuted in the state” and charges that are brought are typically disposed of with a plea to disorderly conduct, “which is akin to a traffic ticket.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).