Spitzer resigns as New York governor amid sex scandal

NEW YORK — Governor Eliot Spitzer, reeling from revelations that he had been a client of a prostitution ring, announced his resignation Wednesday, becoming the first governor of New York to be forced from office in nearly a century.

Spitzer, appearing somber and with his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, at his side, said his resignation was to be effective Monday, and that Lieutenant Governor David Paterson would be sworn in to replace him.

"I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me," he said. "To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize."

"Over the course of my public life, I have insisted - I believe correctly - that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct," he added. "I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor."

Spitzer is the first governor of New York to resign from office since 1973, when Nelson Rockefeller stepped down to devote himself to a policy group, and the first to be forced from office since William Sulzer was impeached and removed from his post in 1913 in a scandal over campaign contribution fraud.

In his brief statement at his headquarters in Manhattan, Spitzer thanked his family for offering support and compassion, and said he had spent the last several days atoning for his personal failings.

Spitzer ended his speech by saying he would leave politics, and then departed quickly without taking questions.

"As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family," he said. "Then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children."

Since issuing an initial apology on Monday, Spitzer had been holed up at his apartment in Manhattan, where his aides said he had been engaged in an intense legal and family debate about whether to resign or, as his wife was urging, to stay on. Part of that debate involved whether Spitzer would be able to work out a deal with prosecutors to avoid criminal charges.

In a rare move, Michael Garcia, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, released a statement after Spitzer's resignation saying that there was no deal.

"There is no agreement between this office and Governor Eliot Spitzer relating to his resignation or any other matter," Garcia said.

In the moments after Spitzer resigned, his successor, Paterson, also released a statement saying that he was "saddened" by what had happened and that "my heart goes out to him and to his family at this difficult and painful time."

"It is now time for Albany to get back to work as the people of this state expect from us," he said.

As Spitzer, a first-term Democrat, took the past two days to contemplate his next move, the New York political world remained in a suspended state, with cries - even from fellow Democrats - growing louder for him to step down.

In one of the last and desperate rounds of the end game, a top Spitzer administration official reached out to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's staff on Tuesday to see whether the governor could avoid an impeachment vote. But the prospects were grim.

Republicans had pledged to try to have Spitzer impeached and only 34 of the more than 100 Democrats in the Assembly would be needed for the matter to be referred to the Senate for an impeachment trial. It was clear during the discussions that 34 or more Democrats were almost certain to vote against the governor.

That outcome would have been a dire one for the governor, because his top political rival, the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, leads the Senate, where a trial would have been held.

"An impeachment proceeding would force Democrats to either abandon him or defend him," said one leading Democrat. "They would abandon him."

Silver said Tuesday that Spitzer should do "what's best for his family," but stopped short of calling on the governor to step down. "It is now up to the governor to make a determination that's best for his family. I pray for his children."

Silver offered a few details of his conversation with Spitzer on Tuesday before the governor briefly spoke to the public. "I said to him then and I say it now: He's got to take care of his family first and be concerned about them. I told him that we will carry on in the legislative process that moves the budget forward. We intend to pass our budget tomorrow. I hope the Senate will do the same."

At a televised news conference on Wednesday morning, Bruno, who will become the lieutenant governor if Paterson replaces Spitzer, told reporters that he had not spoken with Spitzer or any of his top aides about the impending resignation.

Bruno, a Republican who clashed frequently with Spitzer, said he was praying for the governor and his family and urged all New Yorkers to do so as well.

On Tuesday, Spitzer cut himself off from all but the most senior members of his staff.

Close aides to the governor suggested on Tuesday that the mood in the Spitzer home was tense, with the governor's wife recommending that he not step down, but they cautioned that the situation could change at any time.

The revelation of Spitzer's involvement with the high-end prostitution ring gripped the nation, and reporters and photographers clustered outside the governor's Upper East Side high-rise on Tuesday, separated from the building by a metal barricade erected by the police. Helicopters whirred overhead as tourists atop passing double-decker buses snapped pictures.

Spitzer's patronage of the prostitution agency, Emperor's Club VIP, came to light after prosecutors charged four people with operating the service. They said the governor was intercepted on a federal wiretap arranging payments and an encounter with a prostitute in a Washington hotel room last month. The affidavit referred to a Client 9 and did not identify Spitzer by name, but law enforcement officials said that Client 9 was the governor.

Investigators reviewing the scope of Spitzer's involvement with prostitutes said Tuesday that just in the past year he had had more than a half-dozen meetings with them and had paid tens of thousands of dollars to the ring, one law enforcement official said.

A person with knowledge of the service's operations said that Spitzer had begun meeting with the prostitutes of the Emperor's Club about eight months ago and had had encounters in Dallas as well as Washington. A law enforcement official said Spitzer also had an encounter with a prostitute in Florida. On some trips of several days' duration, Spitzer scheduled more than one visit with a prostitute, this person said.

In his Washington visit with the prostitute, Spitzer is said to have used an alias to book one of his rooms at the Mayflower Hotel, the name of a close friend, the financier George Fox.

The authorities were seeking the testimony of the woman known as Kristen, who worked for the Emperor's Club service and is identified in the criminal complaint as having met with the governor last month in Washington, people briefed on the case said.

The woman is said in the complaint to have typically charged $1,000 an hour.