72 Facts About Eliot Spitzer

1.

Eliot Laurence Spitzer was born on June 10,1959 and is an American politician and attorney.

2.

Eliot Spitzer began his career as an attorney in private practice with New York law firms before becoming a prosecutor with the office of the New York County District Attorney.

3.

Eliot Spitzer was elected Governor of New York in 2006 by the largest margin of any candidate, but his tenure lasted less than two years after it was uncovered he patronized a prostitution ring.

4.

Eliot Spitzer resigned immediately following the scandal, and his lieutenant governor, David Paterson, served the rest of his term.

5.

Since leaving the governorship, Eliot Spitzer worked as a television host and an adjunct instructor at City College of New York, along with engaging in real estate activity and making private investments in a start-up company.

6.

Eliot Spitzer sought the office of New York City Comptroller in 2013, but he lost the Democratic nomination to Scott Stringer.

7.

Eliot Laurence Spitzer was born in 1959 in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Anne, an English literature professor, and Bernard Spitzer, a real estate mogul.

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8.

Eliot Spitzer's paternal grandparents were Galician Jews, born in Tluste, Poland, now Ukraine.

9.

Eliot Spitzer's maternal grandparents, born in the 1890s, were Jewish emigrants from Ottoman-era Palestine.

10.

Eliot Spitzer was raised in the affluent Riverdale section of the Bronx.

11.

Eliot Spitzer's family was not religious, and Spitzer did not have a bar mitzvah.

12.

Eliot Spitzer is a 1977 graduate of Horace Mann School.

13.

Eliot Spitzer then received his Juris Doctor at Harvard Law School.

14.

Eliot Spitzer has said he received a perfect score on the Law School Admission Test.

15.

Eliot Spitzer stayed there for less than two years before leaving to join the New York County District Attorney's office.

16.

Eliot Spitzer joined the staff of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, where he became chief of the labor-racketeering unit and spent six years pursuing organized crime.

17.

Eliot Spitzer devised a plan to set up his own sweatshop in the city's garment district, where he turned out shirts, pants and sweaters, and hired 30 laborers.

18.

Thirty-four-year-old Spitzer decided to run as a Democratic candidate in the 1994 election for Attorney General, as did Koppell, Brooklyn Family Court Judge Karen Burstein, and Kings County DA Charles J Hynes.

19.

At the time, Eliot Spitzer was a young and relatively unknown defense attorney representing white-collar criminals.

20.

When he announced his campaign Eliot Spitzer suggested that, if elected, he would use the state's antitrust laws to pursue corporate polluters.

21.

Eliot Spitzer was the only candidate to support the death penalty.

22.

Four years later, Eliot Spitzer again wanted to run for Attorney General and on May 6,1998, he announced he would run for the office for a second time.

23.

Eliot Spitzer had the most money, with over $2 million.

24.

Eliot Spitzer defeated State Senator Catherine Abate, Koppell, and former Governor's Counsel Evan Davis.

25.

In late October 1998, Eliot Spitzer conceded that his father had lent him most of the campaign money he raised.

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26.

Eliot Spitzer did not win a single county in Upstate New York and won a total of six counties statewide.

27.

In 2002 Eliot Spitzer ran for re-election and a second term as New York's Attorney General.

28.

Eliot Spitzer used this statute to allow his office to prosecute cases which have been described as within federal jurisdiction.

29.

Eliot Spitzer used this authority in his civil actions against corporations and criminal prosecutions against their officers.

30.

When inquiries into these allegations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress failed, Eliot Spitzer's office used its subpoena power to obtain corporate documents, building cases against the firms both in courtrooms and in public opinion.

31.

The New York State Senate Investigations committee considered investigating a controversial multi-million-dollar loan the governor's father Bernard Eliot Spitzer gave him when he ran for attorney general in 1998, a loan the younger Eliot Spitzer paid back.

32.

On December 8,2004, Eliot Spitzer announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for governor of New York.

33.

In January 2006, Eliot Spitzer selected New York State Senate minority leader David Paterson as his choice for lieutenant governor and running mate.

34.

Eliot Spitzer was elected governor on November 7,2006, when he defeated Republican John Faso and Libertarian John Clifton, among others, with 69 percent of the vote.

35.

Eliot Spitzer won with the largest margin of victory ever in a New York gubernatorial race.

36.

Eliot Spitzer's reform-based platform, and his pledge "to change the ethics of Albany", hit an early roadblock when his ideas on how to fill vacancies in the executive department were defeated by the state legislature.

37.

Eliot Spitzer had backed an outside panel to draft a list of qualified candidates; the legislature resisted Eliot Spitzer's desires when these included no legislators.

38.

Eliot Spitzer was criticized by members of the New York State Legislature for failing to compromise on issues during his first few months as governor.

39.

Tedisco later accused Eliot Spitzer of cutting $300,000 of state funding for health care and education grants in the Schenectady area as retaliation for Tedisco's opposition to the Eliot Spitzer plan to allow illegal immigrants New York State driver's licenses.

40.

The investigation looked into both Bruno's travel and the Senate leader's allegation that Eliot Spitzer used State Police to spy on him.

41.

Eliot Spitzer subsequently announced that he would indefinitely suspend his communications director, Darren Dopp, and reassign another top official.

42.

On September 21,2007, Eliot Spitzer issued an executive order directing that state offices allow illegal immigrants to be issued driver's licenses effective December 2007.

43.

In October 2007, after meeting with the Department of Homeland Security, Eliot Spitzer altered the plan so that licenses issued to migrant workers would look different from other licenses and that the new licenses would not allow access to airplanes and federal buildings.

44.

Eliot Spitzer announced that the expiration dates of temporary visas would be printed on the driver's licenses of individuals living in the country with them.

45.

On March 10,2008, The New York Times reported that Eliot Spitzer had patronized a high-priced escort service called Emperors Club VIP and met for two hours with a $1,000-an-hour call girl.

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46.

Eliot Spitzer first drew the attention of federal investigators when his bank reported suspicious money transfers under the anti-money laundering provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act.

47.

The resulting investigation was triggered by the belief that Eliot Spitzer might have been hiding bribe proceeds and led to the discovery of the prostitution ring.

48.

Eliot Spitzer added, "I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family".

49.

Tedisco later announced that he would initiate impeachment proceedings in the State Assembly if Eliot Spitzer did not resign.

50.

Eliot Spitzer was New York's tough-talking attorney-general, who fought banking corruption, enforced environment law and won rights for low-paid workers.

51.

Eliot Spitzer used that fame to enter politics and in 2006 became governor of New York: a perfect springboard for the White House.

52.

Eliot Spitzer was dubbed the "Luv Guv" and forced into a political wilderness.

53.

On July 16,2008, The New York Times published an article that explained how Eliot Spitzer used campaign funds to pay for two Mayflower Hotel bookings, $411.06 apiece, where he was alleged to have met with prostitutes.

54.

In September 2009, Eliot Spitzer joined the faculty of the City College of New York as an adjunct instructor of political science and taught an undergraduate course called "Law and Public Policy".

55.

Eliot Spitzer continued to make public appearances and engage in media commitments following his resignation.

56.

Eliot Spitzer became a regular columnist for Slate magazine and in December 2008 Slate published the first of a new series of columns by Eliot Spitzer dedicated to the economy.

57.

Eliot Spitzer took on various public speaking arrangements, beginning with a discussion with the New York chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization on June 17,2009.

58.

Eliot Spitzer made a number of television appearances in 2009 and 2010, including Real Time with Bill Maher and Campbell Brown, as well as appearing as a substitute anchor on MSNBC.

59.

On June 24,2010, CNN announced that Eliot Spitzer would be joining the network to host a "round-table" discussion program alongside center-right commentator Kathleen Parker.

60.

In January 2013, Eliot Spitzer announced that he had left both Viewpoint and Current TV, and that he would not be joining Current TV in its latest venture with Al Jazeera, citing differences of approach.

61.

In 2012, Eliot Spitzer became an investor in TipRanks, an Israeli financial technology start-up company that ranks Wall Street analysts.

62.

Eliot Spitzer became a member of the company's board of directors.

63.

On July 7,2013, Eliot Spitzer announced he was running for New York City Comptroller, and would start a petition the following day.

64.

Eliot Spitzer commented that he was asking for forgiveness, and hopeful that voters could forgive him.

65.

Eliot Spitzer lost the primary on September 10,2013, to Scott Stringer.

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66.

Eliot Spitzer sold his company's apartments in The Corinthian and the Crown Building for a large profit, which he used to fund a $700 million project of three waterfront buildings in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

67.

Prosecutors said that Travis-Zakharova extracted $400,000 from Eliot Spitzer and attempted to extort $5,000 from a different man, a toy store owner, and forged his signature on an apartment lease.

68.

Eliot Spitzer subsequently filed a civil suit against Travis-Zakharova, alleging that she had threatened to "ruin his life" unless he agreed to pay her large sums of money.

69.

Eliot Spitzer was arrested after returning to the US for a visit and charged with forgery and grand larceny; in a plea agreement in 2017, she pleaded guilty to attempted petty larceny, a misdemeanor.

70.

Silda Wall Eliot Spitzer stood beside her husband when he announced his resignation as New York governor following his prostitution scandal.

71.

Eliot Spitzer had been Spitzer's spokeswoman during his 2013 run for comptroller.

72.

In 2019, Eliot Spitzer announced his engagement to Roxana Girand, founder and president of real estate agency Sebastian Capital.