NEXT, PLEASE

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned yesterday amid allegations that he patronized prostitutes, is now in a legal fight to avoid criminal charges.

Spitzer, 48, stepped down after the New York Times reported he was ``Client 9'' of an international call-girl ring whose operators were charged with crimes last week. Spitzer's lawyers need to persuade the U.S. government not to file related charges against him because he allegedly summoned prostitutes to Washington and paid them secretly, former prosecutors said.

Prosecutors are more likely to consider going after Spitzer, a Democrat, for money laundering or misusing his office than for prostitution because customers of call girls are rarely pursued by federal authorities, the lawyers and ex-prosecutors said.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia in New York declined to say after the resignation if he's investigating Spitzer. He said only that ``no agreement'' has been reached with the governor. A call to Garcia's office today for comment on any talks with Spitzer's lawyers was not immediately returned.

The assistant prosecutor handling the case against the prostitution ring is chief of Garcia's public corruption unit, formerly headed by Spitzer's lead lawyer Michele Hirshman.

Spitzer's defense team also includes Theodore Wells, who unsuccessfully defended former vice presidential aide Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby last year for lying about the leak of the identity of a U.S. intelligence agent, and Mark Pomerantz, who won a reversal of an obstruction conviction in 2006 of former Credit Suisse banker Frank Quattrone.

The resignation of Spitzer, who was elected governor in November 2006, followed a criminal investigation of payments made to what prosecutors said was an international prostitution and money-laundering ring called the ``Emperors Club VIP.''

On March 6, prosecutors said they charged four people for operating the business. Client 9, not identified in the criminal complaint, paid $4,300 for sex with a prostitute named ``Kristen'' at a Washington hotel in February. The club accepted payments through front companies, according to the complaint.

Client 9 summoned Kristen from New York to Washington and made secret payments to her, according to an FBI affidavit supporting the complaint.

The New York Times identified Client 9 as Spitzer and said investigators suspected he may have wanted to conceal the source and recipients of his money. Spitzer didn't admit the conduct in resigning. He apologized for what he called ``a private matter.''

Kristen, identified by the New York Times as Ashley Dupre, 22, of Manhattan, was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, and made a brief court appearance March 10 in New York, according to the newspaper, citing an unidentified source. Don Buchwald, who was appointed as her lawyer, according to the newspaper, didn't return a call from Bloomberg News for comment.

Spitzer may be open to charges that he violated the Mann Act, which makes it a crime to transport someone across state lines for prostitution, lawyers said.

He could also be charged with wire fraud, if he made false statements about the source or destination of his funds; structuring, if he made payments to avoid U.S. requirements on reporting cash transactions of more than $10,000; or money laundering, if he knew the ring was using front companies to move money illegally, the lawyers said.

Spitzer's attorneys, who declined to discuss the case, probably will press numerous arguments to persuade prosecutors not to bring charges, the defense lawyers said.

``I'd approach it by saying to the U.S. Attorney's Office that if you prosecute me, you've got to prosecute'' Clients 1-8, said William Mateja, who formerly helped oversee the Justice Department's Corporate Crime Task Force. ``They don't want to be accused of selective prosecution,'' a potential legal defense.

The other eight clients mentioned in the criminal complaint haven't been identified by prosecutors.

Bradley Simon, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, said the facts in the complaint could support of a charge of violating the Mann Act because Client 9 is ``inducing and persuading a woman to cross state lines for sex.'' That law is normally used in conjunction with other violations and usually when it involves a minor, he said.

The law ``is typically reserved for people who operate prostitution rings,'' said Peikin, who's now at the Sullivan & Cromwell firm in New York. ``I would be arguing that the spirit here is not intended to reach this kind of conduct.''

Prosecutors may have a tough time supporting a structuring charge, said Joshua Hochberg, who once headed the Justice Department's fraud section. ``I'm not clear whether the financial transactions were done in any way to evade a reporting requirement,'' Hochberg said.

Bruce Zagaris, a defense attorney at Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe in Washington, said prosecutors might have a shot at a structuring case because of the way Client 9 arranged the payments in cash in amounts less than the $10,000 threshold required for currency reports.

Money laundering isn't a common charge in prostitution cases, said Mark Arnold, a former bank secrecy auditor at Wells Fargo & Co. ``If you go out and do money laundering, usually it's for tax evasion,'' he said.

A fraud charge, based on the notion that Spitzer lied about the source or recipient of his payments, also may be flawed. ``Who's he trying to defraud?'' Mateja said. ``It sounds like it's money that was his money.''

The call girl at the center of the prostitution scandal that prompted Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign in disgrace has been identified as a 22-year-old aspiring musician who struggled in a broken home as a child.

The New York Times reported that the real name of the woman — identified as "Kristen" in court papers alleging that Spitzer paid thousands of dollars for her services — is Ashley Alexandra Dupre.

Don D. Buchwald, a New York lawyer, confirmed to The Associated Press that he represents Dupre, but he wouldn't comment further.

Law enforcement officials have said Spitzer had a Feb. 13 tryst with Kristen and paid her $4,300, according to court papers. Spitzer said Wednesday that he's resigning.

Dupre briefly spoke to the Times about the Spitzer scandal but didn't offer details on her involvement in it.

"I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," Dupre told the Times. "This has been a very difficult time. It's complicated."

Dupre told the newspaper she had slept very little since the allegations against Spitzer were revealed, and she declined to comment when asked by the Times when she first met him and how many times they had been together.

She told the Times she was worried about paying her rent in a ninth-floor Manhattan apartment since her boyfriend recently left her. She said she was considering moving back in with her family in New Jersey.

A man who answered the phone at her mother's home in New Jersey and identified himself as Dupre's brother told The Associated Press he had no idea why Dupre would agree to be interviewed in the scandal.

"She's just trying to get through this," he said. "We are all trying to be supportive of her."

Dupre's MySpace page provides a window into her life as she went from a broken home in New Jersey to a music career in the city.

"I have been alone," she wrote. "I have abused drugs. I have been broke and homeless. But, I survived, on my own. I am here, in NY because of my music."

In an Aug. 30 blog posting on MySpace, she wrote: "The past few months have been a roller coaster with so called friends, lovers, and family ... but its something you have to deal with and confront in order to move on ..."

"What destroys me strengthens me" is the slogan next to a photograph of her. The photos show her at various places, including in a bikini on a boat in a tropical locale. The number of hits to the page soared by the tens of thousands after the story broke, and many recent postings to her page ridiculed her.

Dupre describes her favorite musical artists as Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera and Frank Sinatra, among many others.

Her Web site boasts a recording of a song, "What We Want.""I know what you want, you got what I want," she sings. "I know what you need. Can you handle me?"

Records show she lives in Manhattan a luxury rental skyscraper called The Chelsea Landmark, where a gaggle of reporters and TV trucks quickly gathered Wednesday night. Rents there start at $3500 a month for a small studio, neighbors said. The 35-story building opened less than a year ago.

The apartments feature imported Italian tiles, 9-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling corner windows. The building has a gym with a whirlpool and yoga and Pilates studios.

Dupre apparently appeared in federal court Monday as a witness in the case against four people accused of operating the Emperors Club VIP prostitution ring.

When the Emperors Club VIP said it was sending Kristen, a call girl it described as a "petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds," Client 9 was pleased.

"Great, OK, wonderful," he told the escort service's booking agent, according to a federal affidavit.

Client 9, later revealed to be New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, was caught arranging the liaison on a federal wiretap. It was the beginning of the end for him.

For the woman at the heart of the prostitution scandal, it was just another step on what she calls an "odyssey" of degrading abuse and high aspirations.

Court documents reportedly identified Ashley Youmans -- now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupre -- as Kristen, the high-priced prostitute who met with Spitzer at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on February 13.

Dupre is a 22-year-old would-be singer from New Jersey, the New York Times reported Wednesday. She has not been charged with any crime.

Dupre made a brief appearance Monday in U.S. Magistrate Court as a witness against four people charged with operating Emperor's Club VIP, the prostitution ring, the Times said.

Spitzer announced his resignation Wednesday as governor of New York, two days after reports of his connection to the Emperors Club VIP emerged.

Replacing Eliot L. Spitzer, who rose to the governorship of New York after browbeating Wall Street titans, is David A. Paterson, a man so affable that the colleague he supplanted in an Albany coup now speaks of him in glowing terms.

With Spitzer announcing his resignation amid a prostitution scandal, Paterson, 53, will become the country's third African American governor since Reconstruction, assuming control of the third-largest state in the country and a government that many say has been dysfunctional for years.

Under New York law, Paterson will fill out the remaining three years of Spitzer's term. Several prominent New Yorkers, including Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), are rumored to be considering running for governor in 2010. But Democrats predicted that Paterson will have enough time before then to establish himself as the incumbent favorite.

Though his ascension is sudden, Paterson, who is married and has two children, has had plenty of preparation. He was born in Brooklyn and raised in the thick of the Harlem political world. His father, Basil Paterson, served as state senator, deputy mayor and secretary of state and is allied with such Harlem heavyweights as Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D).

He graduated from Columbia University and Hofstra Law School and went to work for the Queens district attorney and David N. Dinkins's campaign for Manhattan borough president. In 1985, at age 31, he assumed a vacant Senate seat, representing his father's former district.

Given his abilities as a legislator, some in Albany, the state capital, were surprised in 2006 when he gave up his shot at leading Senate Democrats into the majority for the more ceremonial position of lieutenant governor. But his allies predict that he will handle his first executive role well. "He'll do fine. He's a veteran. He's been in the trenches for many, many years," said Assemblyman Keith L.T. Wright, a Harlem Democrat who has known Paterson since childhood.

As an infant, Paterson was declared legally blind, with minimal sight in only one eye, a disability that has not kept him from running a marathon and playing pickup basketball. "The impressive thing about him . . . is a constant striving to overcome his disability," said Eric Lane, who was one of his professors at Hofstra.

Paterson's family roots set him apart somewhat from other African American politicians on the rise who are viewed as part of a new post-civil-rights-era generation, such as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick (D) and Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker (D). Though he shares part of their reform agenda, Paterson represents a more traditional type of community-based urban leadership, say New York Democrats.

Like Spitzer, Paterson is supporting his state's junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for the Democratic presidential nomination. His politics are liberal, further left in several areas than Spitzer, who as a former attorney general emphasized criminal justice and who drew criticism for cutting back on the money allotted to New York City schools after a long-running court battle.

It remains to be seen whether Paterson's history in Albany will keep him from picking up Spitzer's agenda of reforming the capital, where incumbents are protected from challenges and enormous power is invested in the governor and the heads of the two legislative chambers. Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf predicted that Paterson will press reforms, but in a more measured way. "He's going to show he can get things accomplished without leaving a lot of blood in the hallway," he said.