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The Spitzer Wiretap Conundrum
One way of explaining how Mr. Spitzer's identity was revealed would be saying that he was caught doing something bad. Not illegal, as far as we know, but embarrassingly inappropriate. However, one should also wonder if Mr. Spitzer was inadvertently identified as a result of the Bush administration's ongoing illegal wiretapping of American citizens? Ah, then you'd have to a.) invent an elaborate explanation and time line showing how Spitzer stumbled into his current perdicament, or b.) reveal exactly how widespread the practice of illegally monitoring the private conversations of American citizens has become? What would you do?
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Comments (1)
Not illegal? He did plenty that was illegal. Prostitution is illegal in every state of the union except Nevada. Transporting someone across state lines (and arranging for transportation and paying the cost of it qualifies as "transporting") is a federal crime. Structuring transactions to try to avoid the filing of a CTR which would otherwise be required is a federal crime.
There is no need to invoke illegal wiretapping as the only way in which Spitzer's identity could have been established, no elaborate time line necessary. The bank knew who he was, and he would have been identified on the SAR that was filed. SARs had also been filed on the QAT enterprise that was serving as a front for the prostitution ring. It's only a small step from there to identifying the source of money being wired to QAT and tracing it back to Spitzer, among others. The investigation would have been able to legally obtain phone records and install wiretaps; what reason do you have to think they were illegal?
I work in banking; the minute I heard that Spitzer was paying those hefty fees in cash, I wondered how he managed to do it without tripping the BSA alarm. Turns out he didn't manage to avoid tripping the alarm after all. Once the alarm was tripped, it's no surprise to me that the investigators managed to unravel where that money was going. What is a real surprise to me is that Spitzer himself seems never to have considered how great the risk was that he would eventually be caught.
March 12, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
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