ELIOT SPITZER LIVED IN A GLASS HOUSE AND HAD A LOT OF ENEMIES

When Eliot Spitzer came barging into the music business like a bull in a china shop, most of my colleagues were horrified. He was putting a stop to the millions and millions of dollars the industry was forced to pay in bribes to get our records played on the radio. How would we get our records played? They were distraught at the thought of having to promote the music in new ways and creatively instead of with bribes. I'm going to share an IM stream that I had this evening with a former colleague who hates Spitzer and, as you will see, wishes him the worst. My ex-colleague is a Democrat who lives in New York.

xxx (6:34:38 PM):     god spitzer will go down hard
HowieKlein (6:34:53 PM):     what a tragedy!
xxx (6:34:58 PM):     fuck him
xxx (6:35:07 PM):     he fucked up the music bixz
HowieKlein (6:35:21 PM):     by stopping bribery?
xxx (6:35:25 PM):     when he too was doing shit that is under
xxx (6:35:42 PM):     no by stopping promoters to get new artists a shot
HowieKlein (6:35:47 PM):     what was he doing-- getting some poontang?
xxx (6:36:01 PM):     80 K worth of poontang
HowieKlein (6:36:07 PM):     so?
xxx (6:36:34 PM):     so? fuck spitzer, hope he rots
xxx (6:36:56 PM):     double standard prick
HowieKlein (6:37:14 PM):     good thing you never hired a hooker
HowieKlein (6:37:25 PM):     at least not a female one
xxx (6:37:35 PM):     would not pay that much ever if i had to thats for sure
HowieKlein (6:38:03 PM):     his parents are billionaires and money is no object. I did a story yesterday about how the rich think about hookers
xxx (6:38:24 PM):     spitzoid is the reason that new artists on the radio has shrunk by 45% over the last two years
HowieKlein (6:38:32 PM):     http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/03/who-uses-hookers-it-isnt-only-eliot.html
xxx (6:38:54 PM):     I already know...believe me

I have no reason not to believe him. In today's Wall Street Journal Alan Dershowitz examined what may have been behind the Spitzer case and it should send a chill up everyone's spine, even the folks in the industries who saw themselves as his victims. (I mean if a public official won't allow you to bribe radio stations-- which had been putting your own company on the verge of bankruptcy because, of course, bribe regimes know no bounds-- he certainly deserves all that his enemies can hurl at him... right?)

There's a lot of discretion that prosecutors can use to go after "the bad guys." XXX (and myself, and, in all likelihood, almost every male member of the U.S, Congress) has hired a prostitute. The FBI isn't prosecuting the rest of us. So why Spitzer? "They wiretapped 5,000 phone conversations, intercepted 6,000 emails, used surveillance and undercover tactics that are more appropriate for trapping terrorists than entrapping johns. Unlike terrorism and other predatory crimes, prostitution is legal in many parts of the world and in some parts of the U.S. Even in places like New York, where it is technically illegal, johns are rarely prosecuted. Prostitution rings operate openly, advertising "massage" and "escort" services in the back pages of glossy magazines, local newspapers and television sex channels."

Generally, wise and intelligent prosecutors use their discretion properly-- to target organized crime, terrorism, financial predation, exploitation of children and the like. But the very existence of these selectively enforced statutes poses grave dangers of abuse. They lie around like loaded guns waiting to be used against the enemies of politically motivated investigators, prosecutors and politicians.

There is no hard evidence that Eliot Spitzer was targeted for investigation, but the story of how he was caught does not ring entirely true to many experienced former prosecutors and current criminal lawyers. The New York Times reported that the revelations began with a routine tax inquiry by revenue agents "conducting a routine examination of suspicious financial transactions reported to them by banks." This investigation allegedly found "several unusual movements of cash involving the Governor of New York." But the movement of the amounts of cash required to pay prostitutes, even high-priced prostitutes over a long period of time, does not commonly generate a full-scale investigation.

We are talking about thousands, not millions, of dollars. We are also talking about a man who is a multimillionaire with numerous investments and purchases. The idea that federal investigators would focus on a few transactions to corporations-- that were not themselves under investigation-- raises as many questions as answers.


...Lavrenti Beria, the head of Joseph Stalin's KGB, once quipped to his boss, "show me the man and I will find the crime." The Soviet Union was notorious for having accordion-like criminal laws that could be adjusted to fit almost any dissident target. The U.S. is a far cry from the Soviet Union, but our laws are dangerously overbroad.

Both Democrats and Republicans have targeted political adversaries over the years. The weapons of choice are almost always elastic criminal laws. And few laws are more elastic, and susceptible to abuse, than federal laws on money laundering and sex crimes. For the sake of all Americans, these laws should be narrowed and limited to predatory crimes with real victims.