Eliot Spitzer won’t face federal charges for patronizing a high-end prostitute and arranging for her to cross state lines for their meetings.
U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said that since Spitzer resigned as governor, and no public money was used, than “the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges.”
Democratic State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., an ordained minister and outspoken critic of Spitzer welcomed the news. “He has suffered [so] much already,” and “having resigned as governor, he has paid enough.” He went on to say, “Everybody deserves second chances.”
The president of the New York State chapter of the National Organization of Woman, Marcia Pappas – who learned of the news from my call – said she thought it was right not to prosecute Spitzer, since it was sex conducted between two consenting adults.
“I think maybe this says a lot about how we need to look at the issue of prostitution, and how hard does the state go in determining the criminality between two consenting adults and legislate morality. We obviously need to be very careful about it,” said Pappas.
“The discussion between feminists is, we have to be careful how we ask legislatures to pass laws on this issue. We are an organization that believes woman should be able to make decisions about what to do with their bodies without government interference. But we also know that if women lived in a society where they made decent wages – because the real issue is poverty – we wouldn’t see as many women going into this field. But in the meantime, we would not criticize women who have chosen this profession.”
“It’s not an easy discussion and there are no easy answers for it. But in terms of Eliot Spitzer, I think he’s paid the price for this, in terms of his family and his career. And I think that he’s trying to put his life together and we should be careful on how we make judgments on this.”
