The affidavit said that Kristen spent about two hours with Client 9. She collected the remainder of her fee, about $2,700, from him. He also paid an additional $1,600 as a deposit for future services from the Emperors Club.
At midnight, Kristen called the Emperors Club to report that the date was over. "I don't think he's difficult," Kristen told the agent. "I know what my purpose is. . . . I know what I do."
In the morning, Spitzer testified before a congressional finance committee about the bond insurance industry.
The Emperors Club VIP ranked its prostitutes on a scale of one to seven diamonds, with the most elite women charging $5,500 an hour. Booking agents reassured clients that wire transfers and credit-card transactions would show up on billing records as being paid to a shell company called QAT Consulting.
Advertising online with photos of lingerie-clad women -- no faces visible -- the club is alleged to have attracted wealthy clients across the U.S. and overseas. "Two A+ in a row," one satisfied client told a booking agent. "I don't know where you get these young ladies."
Emperors Club prostitutes regularly worked in Los Angeles, Miami, London and Paris as well as New York and Washington, according to court documents. (Though the affidavit detailed one tryst at the Beverly Hills Hotel, business wasn't great in Los Angeles: One booking agent complained to her boss, "I don't know if, if you're going to be advertising but . . . it's just been really, really slow in L.A. . . . We have a lot of girls there now. . . . We need calls.")
On Thursday, the U.S. attorney's office in the southern district of New York unsealed charges against a man and three women accused of running the Emperors Club. All four were charged with conspiracy to violate federal prostitution standards. Two were also charged with conspiracy to launder more than $1 million in illicit proceeds.
The arrests generated few headlines nationally until Monday, when the New York Times reported Spitzer's involvement on its website.
"I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself," Spitzer said, biting his lip as he faced a crowd of media.
He rushed out of the room as reporters shouted after him: "Are you resigning?"
Although Spitzer, 48, did not address his future -- he said only that he needed time "to regain the trust of my family" -- political analysts said the episode would likely end the career of a man once touted as a potential Democratic presidential candidate.
