Spitzer: Bully Gets His Comeuppance

“I had a simple rule.  I never asked if a case was popular or unpopular.  I never asked if it was big or small, hard or easy.  I simply asked if it was right or wrong.”

Eliot Spitzer (subscription required), campaign ad for Governor of New York

“I will be coming after you.  You will pay the price.  This is only the beginning, and you will pay dearly for what you have done.  You will wish you had never written that letter.”

Eliot Spitzer (subscription required) threatening former Goldman Sachs Chairman John Whitehead after he published an editorial in the WSJ defending AIG Chief Maurice Greenberg, who Spitzer was prosecuting, April 2005

“My beeper goes off everytime we indict someone.”

Eliot Spitzer (subscription required), after his beeper went off during a speech to the New York Society of Securities Analysts, 2003

The mayor “is wrong at every level – dead wrong, factually wrong, legally wrong, morally wrong, ethically wrong.”

Eliot Spitzer, on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s opposition to his plan to offer driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants

Spitzer Incidents

  • Spitzer aides circulated allegations that Dick Grasso, NYSE Chief who Spitzer was prosecuting, had had an improper relationship with his secretary.
  • Spitzer almost came to blows during an argument with the AG of California at a conference.
  • Just weeks into office as Governor of New York, used the New York State Police to try and prove that his rival, Republican State Senate Leader Joseph Bruno, had misused a state helicopter for political trips.
  • Told former GE CEO Jack Welch to pass along a message to Ken Langone, former NYSE director involved in the Grasso Case, that Spitzer would “put a spike through Langone’s heart”.

Eliot Spitzer, a man notorious for self righteousness and moral condemnation, who intimidated opponents with charges of moral impropriety and threats of criminal prosecution, is himself now implicated in a high end prostitution ring. 

“Client 9”, as he was known, apparently met with a prostitute in a Washinton Hotel the night of February 13, the day before Valentine’s Day, testifying before Congress the following day on the bond insurance industry. 

According to reports, this was just one of his many illicit meetings with prostitutes.

Spitzer made his name attacking Wall Street for linking analyst recommendations with investment banking work during the tech bubble.  Research analysts such as Henry Blodget and Jack Grubman were mercilessly tarred and barred from working in the securities industry for life.

He has also relentlessly pursued former NYSE Chief Dick Grasso over supposedly unethical pay and former AIG Chief Maurice Greenberg.  Both have denied his charges and continue to defend themselves in court.

The feeling on Wall Street can best be summed up: IT’S PAYBACK TIME BITCH.

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