Dershowitz: The Entrapment of Eliot

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

The Entrapment of Eliot
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
March 13, 2008; Page A19

(snip)

There is no hard evidence that Eliot Spitzer was targeted for investigation, but the story of how he was caught does not ring entirely true to many experienced former prosecutors and current criminal lawyers. The New York Times reported that the revelations began with a routine tax inquiry by revenue agents "conducting a routine examination of suspicious financial transactions reported to them by banks." This investigation allegedly found "several unusual movements of cash involving the Governor of New York." But the movement of the amounts of cash required to pay prostitutes, even high-priced prostitutes over a long period of time, does not commonly generate a full-scale investigation. We are talking about thousands, not millions, of dollars. We are also talking about a man who is a multimillionaire with numerous investments and purchases. The idea that federal investigators would focus on a few transactions to corporations -- that were not themselves under investigation -- raises as many questions as answers.

Even if Mr. Spitzer's derelictions were serendipitously discovered as a result of routine, computerized examination of bank transactions, the dangers inherent in selective use of overbroad criminal statutes remain. Money laundering, structuring and related financial crimes are designed to ferret out organized crime, drug dealing, terrorism and large-scale financial manipulation. They were not enacted to give the federal government the power to inquire into the sexual or financial activities of men who move money in order to hide payments to prostitutes. Once federal authorities concluded that the "suspicious financial transactions" attributed to Mr. Spitzer did not fit into any of the paradigms for which the statutes were enacted, they should have closed the investigation. It's simply none of the federal government's business that a man may have been moving his own money around in order to keep his wife in the dark about his private sexual peccadilloes. But the authorities didn't close the investigation. They expanded it, because they had caught a big fish in the wide net they had cast.

In this case, they wiretapped 5,000 phone conversations, intercepted 6,000 emails, used surveillance and undercover tactics that are more appropriate for trapping terrorists than entrapping johns. Unlike terrorism and other predatory crimes, prostitution is legal in many parts of the world and in some parts of the U.S. Even in places like New York, where it is technically illegal, johns are rarely prosecuted. Prostitution rings operate openly, advertising "massage" and "escort" services in the back pages of glossy magazines, local newspapers and television sex channels.

(snip)

In this case, if the serendipitous bank audit really led federal agents to Mr. Spitzer, and Mr. Spitzer led them to the Emperor's Club, and federal prosecutors really wanted to get the Club, they could easily have sent an undercover cop to pose as a john, instead of tapping phones and reading emails -- tactics designed to catch and embarrass Mr. Spitzer with his own recorded words, which could be, and were, leaked to the media. As this newspaper has reported: "It isn't clear why the FBI sought the wiretap warrant. Federal prostitution probes are exceedingly rare, lawyers say, except in cases involving organized-crime leaders or child abuse. Federal wiretaps are seldom used to make these cases . . ."

(snip)


URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120536943121332151.html

[shraby]

1. I thought the whole operation smacked of

a political take-down.

[ben_meyers]

2. And OJ didn't kill Nicole either. n/t

[question everything]

3. No one is dismissing Spitzer's pursuing of the prostitute

and he should have resigned, after building his career as Mister Morality, pursuing others with vengeance.

But many wondered about why federal prosecutors ended up pursuing these activities. Of course, we do have Congress pursuing athletes so the priorities of our federal agencies are open to questioning.

[belpejic]

4. Get over it, Dershowitz

Spitzer is a hounddog, and he pissed off a lot of people. So these people found a way to bust him. Do you think David Vitter just accidentally fell into his trap? Or that "Wide Stance" Craig simply got nailed in a random roust? Or that Bubba got almost fatally (career-wise), um, exposed by a low-level admin assistant?

It's called politics, Alan, and when it suits your agenda you like it, so don't cry foul. Now go back to defending torture.

Thank you.