Legal Commentary

New York's New Governor and Wife Both Admit to Extra-Marital Affairs

By Jeralyn

I doubt this will bring any solace to Eliot Spitzer, but after his swearing in today, New York Governor David Paterson and his wife told the New York Daily News they each had had extra-marital affairs.

In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.

In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.

What prompted the interviews? Threats of exposure:

The First Couple agreed to speak publicly about the difficulties in their marriage in response to a variety of rumors about Paterson's personal life that have been circulating in Albany and among the press corps in recent days.

Paterson and his former paramour trysted at a Manhattan Days Inn Hotel.

Asked if he had stayed with anyone else since 2001 at the same West Side hotel, Paterson said, "From time to time I used to take Michelle to that hotel."

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 18, 2008 (boomark / email).