Your heart goes out to them, you know? It's just tragic when someone at the peak of his or her career gets mixed up with the bad element and suddenly faces a personal and professional catastrophe. I just feel so bad for the proprietors of the Emperor's Club VIP, and their families.

They were on top of the world. They could charge top dollar. Their website was spectacular! Quality photography and layout! And when you read the affidavit, you can tell they were mindful about finances, making sure that payments were made in advance. There is the decided implication that they put safety first in their relatinships with clients. So what went wrong? The same thing that has brought down so many other people doing well in life: They got entangled with the wrong kind of person.

The governor of the state of New York.

The Emperor's Club wasn't the original target of the federal investigation. They were collateral damage. The feds were trying to figure out why Eliot Spitzer was moving so much cash around. They were trying to sniff out bribes. The Spitzer trail led them to the prostitution ring.

From the Times:

"...in the Hauppauge offices of the Internal Revenue Service, investigators conducting a routine examination of suspicious financial transactions reported to them by banks found several unusual movements of cash involving the governor of New York...

... this was not typical: transactions by a governor who appeared to be trying to conceal the source, destination or purpose of the movement of thousands of dollars in cash, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The money ended up in the bank accounts of what appeared to be shell companies, corporations that essentially had no real business.

The transactions, officials said, suggested possible financial crimes -- maybe bribery, political corruption, or something inappropriate involving campaign finance. Prostitution, they said, was the furthest thing from the minds of the investigators."

Spitzer hasn't been charged with a crime, but could face a charge called "structuring," which is when you attempt to conceal payments for something. (Phrased better on Brian Ross' blog: "Structuring involves creating a series of financial movements designed to obscure the true purpose of the payments.") One wonders [wild speculation about to begin] if he's using his resignation as a negotiating element in a plea deal.

In any case, you should ignore any journalistic account that claims that Spitzer got caught up in a prostitution ring. Really, it was the other way around.

By Joel Achenbach  |  March 11, 2008; 10:15 AM ET
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