Republicans in the Assembly threatened to begin impeachment proceedings against once highly popular governor Eliot Spitzer if he fails to step down by Thursday.
NEW YORK: Republicans in the Assembly threatened to begin impeachment proceedings against once highly popular governor Eliot Spitzer if he fails to step down by Thursday even as his aides said he was holding onto his resignation letter to cut the best possible deal with federal prosecutors.
The New York Times, however said he was engaged in an intense legal and family debate over whether to resign and quoted aides as saying that his wife, who is a corporate attorney, was urging him to stay on.
Legal analysts say Spitzer may be in more serious trouble for allegedly manipulating his own funds and the way in which he moved money from one account to another to pay for sex and call girls.
Federal investigators were quoted as saying by ABC television network that there is no evidence Spitzer used state money or campaign funds to pay the prostitutes, but that the way he moved an estimated $40,000 through various accounts violated federal money laundering laws.
"These are serious laws and laws that given the amount of money involved here could mean a prison term of 10 to 18 months," Sean O'Shea, a former federal prosecutor specializing in financial crimes, was quoted as saying.
A prison term is one of the issues holding up the governor's resignation as well as whether or not he pleads guilty to criminal charges, ABC news said.
Analysts say that if Spitzer fails to resign, it could lead to an ugly impeachment battle in the State legislature with Republicans determined to initiate the proceedings. No one relishes such a fight in a presidential election year, one
analyst said.
Lt Governor David A Paterson was being briefed by officials as he will complete Spitzer's term which ends 2010 should the governor step down. In that case, Patterson will become the first African American and first legally blind governor of the State.
Peterson is very popular in New York and is a supporter of Hillary Clinton and was being named her replacement as New York Senator should she win the Democratic Presidential nomination.
No official word was available from the governor and media outlets depended mostly on unidentified aides.
No confirmation was available about investigations of any other aspect either by FBI or Internal Revenue Service or any other federal agency. The deal, analysts say, would depend on the evidence that the prosecutors have. But most said he is unlikely to be tried on prostitution charges.
The New York Times quoted investigators reviewing the scope of Spitzer's involvement with prostitutes as saying yesterday that over the past year he had over half-a-dozen meetings with them for which he had paid tens of thousands of dollars.
A 22-year-old escort found on another call-girl website claimed to ABC News in a phone interview that Eliot Spitzer had been one of her customers two years ago when he was New York attorney general and that he was a nice guy who tipped well.
She said she knew who he was because he had made calls from the attorney general's office in Brooklyn, New York.
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