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During sentencing of the last defendants in the trial of the Emperors Club prostitution ring, records were unsealed concerning the bust of former governor Eliot Spitzer. The files revealed that Spitzer patronized the women of the club for eighteen months to two years, using a number of different aliases and meeting them in New York, Washington, and other cities. He paid for the assignations using a "relatively unsophisticated" system of postal money orders, which in the end helped him escape prosecution, as it indicated he was using his own money and not taxpayer or campaign funds. The records also show that, as suspected, the investigation of the Emperors Club was launched after Spitzer's suspicious banking activity, and not vice versa. That is, the prostitution ring would not have been busted had Spitzer not been under scrutiny. We're sure this is of great comfort to the employees of the Emperors Club — one of whom is serving prison time, and the latest of whom faces a year's probation, while Spitzer walked away without prosecution.

At a Sentencing, Details of Spitzer’s Liaisons [NYT]