Legal News

The Spitzer Investigation: Debating the Prosecutorial Function

By Dan Slater

When the initial thrill and shock of the prostitution scandal surrounding former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer dissipated a bit, the same, perplexing question seemed to beset the legal community, particularly those familiar with the workings of the U.S. attorneys’ offices. Given the scarcity of federal prosecutions for prostitution-related offenses, why had the Feds committed so many resources to tracking Spitzer’s trysts?

Today, the NYT reports that government lawyers and investigators justify the expenditure of resources on the Emperor’s Club case because it involved the possibility of criminal wrongdoing by New York’s highest elected official, who had also been the state’s top prosecutor.

“If they’ve got some evidence of a high-ranking public official involved in violations of federal criminal code, it may not be unreasonable for them to pursue it,” said Bradly Simon, a DOJ trial lawyer who was a federal prosecutor in Brookyln in the 1990’s. Still, Simon said, “I don’t think prostitution has been a high priority at the Justice Department.”

Government sources told the NYT that, once investigators began examining reports of suspicious transactions — filed by banks — there was no alternative but to look into Spitzer’s activities. The reports, which suggested that Spitzer might’ve been trying to keep anyone from noticing transfers of his own funds, left the government with a dilemma. While they don’t routinely investigate allegations concerning public officials who pay for sex, the DOJ and FBI regard public corruption as a high priority and routinely investigate allegations of even low-level wrongdoing. According to the NYT, officials said that, had they dropped the matter, they almost certainly would’ve been accused of a cover-up.

LB’ers: Many have criticized the way the Feds handled the Spitzer case, claiming either that it was politically-motivated or that Spitzer was threatened with overly broad applications of federal law. Putting aside, for a minute, the poetic justice arguments, do you think the Feds pursued the investigation correctly?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).