ALBANY, N.Y. -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to resign, completing a
stunning fall from power after he was nationally disgraced by links to
a high-priced prostitution ring, a top state official said Wednesday.
Spitzer
was scheduled to announce his resignation at 11:30 a.m., according to a
second top Spitzer staffer. The officials spoke to The Associated Press
on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been
made.
Spitzer would be replaced by Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who will become New York's first black governor.
The
scandal erupted Monday when allegations surfaced that Spitzer, a
48-year-old married man with three teenage daughters, spent thousands
of dollars on a call girl named Kristen at a swanky Washington hotel on
the night before Valentine's Day.
"I have acted in a way that
violates my obligations to my family and violates my _ or any _ sense
of right and wrong," the governor said at a news conference with his
wife, Silda, at his side. "I apologize to the public, whom I promised
better."
Calls for his resignation came immediately.
Republicans began talking impeachment if he didn't step aside.
Meanwhile, Spitzer stayed holed up in his Manhattan apartment, where he
was reportedly weighing his options, including waiting to use
resignation as a bargaining chip with federal prosecutors to avoid
indictment.
The case involving Spitzer started when banks
noticed frequent cash transfers from several accounts and filed
suspicious activity reports with the Internal Revenue Service, a law
enforcement official told The Associated Press. The accounts were
traced back to Spitzer, leading public corruption investigators to open
an inquiry.
A law enforcement official said Tuesday that
Spitzer had spent tens of thousands of dollars with the call-girl
service Emperors Club VIP. Another official said the amount could be as
high as $80,000.
Still another law enforcement official said
investigators found that during the tryst with Kristen, Spitzer used
two rooms at Washington's Mayflower Hotel _ one for himself, the other
for the prostitute. Sometime around 10 p.m., Spitzer sneaked away from
his security detail and made his way to her room, the official said.
According
to an affidavit, a federal judge approved wiretaps on the escort
service's telephone in January and February. FBI agents in Washington
had the Mayflower under surveillance when Spitzer was in town, a senior
law enforcement official said.
The officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Spitzer,
a first-term Democrat, built his political reputation on rooting out
government corruption, and made a name for himself as attorney general
as crusader against shady practices and overly generous compensation.
He also cracked down on prostitution.
He was known as the
"Sheriff of Wall Street." Time magazine named him "Crusader of the
Year," and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness." The square-jawed
graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law was sometimes
mentioned as a potential candidate for president.
He rode into
the governor's office with a historic margin of victory on Jan. 1,
2007, vowing to stamp out corruption in New York government in the same
way that he took on Wall Street executives with a vengeance while state
attorney general.
His term as governor has been fraught with
problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver's licenses to
illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear his main Republican
nemesis. The prostitution scandal, some said, was too much to overcome.
Freshman Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand
became the first Democratic member of New York's congressional
delegation to mention resignation on Tuesday. "This is very grave and
sad news," she said. "If these serious allegations are true, the
governor will have no choice but to resign."
Earlier
this year, the Bush administration deployed a second Navy group carrier
into the Persian Gulf. Vice President Cheney referred to the move as an
attempt to send a “
