| Eliot Spitzer  AKA Eliot Laurence Spitzer
Born: 10-Jun-1959
Birthplace: Bronx, NY
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Government, Attorney
Party Affiliation: Democratic Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Governor of New York, 2007-08 Eliot Spitzer's father is an Austrian emigrant and a self-made real estate magnate. He attended private schools, and then he went on to Princeton and Harvard, before joining a successful law firm. He stayed for only two years, then took a job working for Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. Spitzer spent six years as Assistant DA, investigating and prosecuting organized crime. In 1992, Spitzer's work toppled the Gambino Crime Family's control of Manhattan's trucking and garment businesses. He re-entered private practice, for a different law firm. In 1994 he ran for Attorney General, and lost. In 1998, he ran again and narrowly won. His father underwrote his candidacies to the tune of $9 million.
In early 2002, an aide in Spitzer's office showed him a stack of internal emails from Merrill Lynch, where company executives blithely acknowledged that they had downgraded stock from a company, not because there was anything wrong with the stock, but because that company didn't do business with Merrill Lynch. Spitzer's office opened an investigation that showed that Merrill Lynch was systematically doctoring its "advice" to investors, to shore up the stock giant's investment arms and to kick companies that didn't play ball. The settlement cost Merrill Lynch $100 million, and its reputation.
Spitzer then led a multi-state effort to investigate and prosecute other investment brokers and bankers. Those fines and penalties totaled about $1.4 billion. It sounds like a job for the federal government's Securities and Exchange Commission, but the SEC was sound asleep, and Wall Street is in New York, which made it Spitzer's jurisdiction. The SEC "missed what was obvious", he said. "They should have know about this before I did."
In November 2002, Spitzer was invited to speak at the Institutional Investor Dinner, an annual awards event for the very sort of stock and investment schmoozers he'd been going after. He accepted the invitation, but delivered a speech they probably did not bargain for:
These are the Institutional Investor Awards, and thus reflect criteria important to institutional investors, who prize analysts' accessibility, their insights and their ability to uncover a valuable piece of information about a company or sector, and their access to management. What these awards do not measure is the performance of analysts' buy, sell and hold recommendations. I am not here to question those criteria used by institutional investors or to challenge their application. But since my focus has been on protecting individual investors, I want to call attention to the industry's use of these awards, which is in need of reform.
Although tonight's all-stars are named by and for institutional investors, the brokerage houses tout these awards to the investing public together with the analysts' stock recommendations. The message being broadcast to individual investors by linking the awards to stock picking is deceptively simple: follow the "smart" or "professional" institutional money and act on these recommendations. That message is simply deceptive.
It implies that tonight's awards measure the performance of the buy, sell and hold recommendations offered. In fact, tonight's awards do no such thing. Those in attendance tonight already know this. But the investing public is not aware that the awards don't reflect the performance of your stock recommendations..."
The conflicts of interest Spitzer uncovered in the stock market were no secret in the industry, or to reporters who cover the industry. These were standard-issue conflicts of interest that had existed for decades, but Spitzer came at them with a ferocity that stunned the business world. Spitzer sees himself as a stalwart defender of capitalism -- rooting out the guilty, so that people will know businesses are on the up-and-up. Confidence in the stock market, or any business, is increased, not diminished, argues Spitzer, by seeing crooked businessmen hauled away in handcuffs. Spitzer blasts the notion of laissez faire economics, that free markets will correct most bad business practices by making those companies that are guilty of bad behavior less profitable. "They've said that intervention by [...] government is wrong but they haven't taken into account that markets can have structural flaws."
Environmental polluters are one of Spitzer's favorite examples: They're rarely punished by the market, and under George W. Bush, rarely punished by regulators -- which means that society at large pays the price for pollution. Spitzer has demanded that the federal Environmental Protection Agency turn over files of 50 power plants EPA had investigated, but never prosecuted. He wants to prosecute the power plants for violations of the Clean Air Act if they're guilty. Not surprisingly, there are few fans of Spitzer in leadership positions at the EPA.
Spitzer led a coalition of 41 states in a price-fixing lawsuit against the five largest music companies and three largest music retailers. The companies settled, paying $143.1 million.
Spitzer sent chills down the spines of anti-abortion activists when he subpoenaed several "crisis pregnancy centers" -- clinics that offer anti-abortion counseling to pregnant women. Spitzer suggested that these projects may have violated the law by "misrepresenting the services they provide" and "diagnosing and advising persons on medical options" without a license.
Spitzer has gone after Wal-Mart, for selling toy guns virtually indistinguishable from real guns, which put children at risk of being shot by police officers. He's gone after WorldCom's former head Bernard Ebbers and four other telecom executives on fraud charges. He's gone after drug giants GlaxoSmithKline and Pharmacia for price-fixing. He's uncovered crookedness in mutual funds markets.
In 2004, Spitzer pronounced that New York law does not allow same-sex couples to marry in New York, but said the state must under the US Constitution recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states. He also said the law may be "flawed", and said he personally thinks gay couples should have the equal right to marry.
Spitzer also lost plenty of cases, even high-profile prosecutions: "If you succeed all the time, you're probably picking battles that are too easy." As Attorney General he was criticized, deservedly, for not requiring a straightforward apology from Merrill Lynch. That may sound like nitpicking, but when companies publicly "admit no wrongdoing", it makes it harder for investors and customers to successfully sue. The whopping fines he's collected, even $100 million at a crack, amount to chump change for companies as huge as Merrill Lynch.
In 2006 he ran for Governor of New York, winning in a landslide with 69% of the vote. On 11 March 2008, following an investigation in what appeared at first to be suspicious financial arrangements, IRS and FBI officials informed reporters that Spitzer had been caught on wiretaps making arrangements for liaisons with rather expensive prostitutes, amounting over time to a figure "as high as $80,000." Without admitting details, he held a press conference (stunned wife by his side) and apologized to his family and voters for his behavior. He announced his resignation on March 12, taking effect on March 17. Father: Bernard Spitzer (real estate developer)
Mother: Anne Spitzer (literature teacher, Marymount Manhattan College)
Wife: Silda A. Wall (charity executive, Children for Children)
Daughter: (b. 1990)
Daughter: (b. 1992)
Daughter: (b. 1994)
Slept with: Ashley Alexandra Dupré (prostitute, "Kristen", three diamond rating)
High School: Horace Mann School, Riverdale, NY (1977)
University: Princeton University (1981)
Law School: Harvard Law School (1984)
Governor of New York (4-Jan-2007 to 17-Mar-2008, his resignation)
Attorney General of New York (1999-2007)
Law Clerk for Robert W. Sweet
Skadden, Arps Associate (1982-94)
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Associate
Friends of Hillary
John Kerry for President
New Leadership for America PAC
World Technology Network
Requires Flash 7+ and Javascript.
Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile
Copyright ©2008 Soylent Communications
|
