Former New York Attorney General and Governor Eliot Spitzer, with co-host Kathleen Parker, completes his rehabilitation on their recently launched CNN show. Photograph: CNN handout
Eliot Spitzer was the attorney general and then governor of New York state. As attorney general, he prosecuted prostitution rings, as well as mafia dons and corrupt financial managers.
In 2005, Spitzer, then attorney general, prosecuted owners and employees of the escort agency New York Confidential, sending top-rated escort-turned-author Natalie McLennan and artist-turned-booker Hulbert Waldroup to prison. As governor, Spitzer signed a law increasing penalties for clients of prostitutes (PDF). When it came out that he was himself a client, Spitzer resigned. He was not charged with any crime.
CeeCee Suwal served six months and has a felony conviction for arranging Spitzer's meeting with the escort that led to his downfall. Each appears in a new documentary, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, to be released across the US on 12 November, this week.
One person who isn't interviewed, however, is Ashley Dupre. She was the escort Spitzer met in Washington, DC; after the scandal broke, she later became a NY Post columnist. Director Alex Gibney's visually beautiful film attempts to rehabilitate Spitzer's image. Dupre is slammed for her media appearances – seemingly because they inhibited a comeback for Spitzer. Her former boss, CeeCee, is far more generous, praising Dupre's ability to move ahead after her role in the scandal.
Spitzer is a wealthy man with no criminal record who now hosts a CNN show. Gibney has misplaced his efforts attempting to vindicate Spitzer. Instead, those convicted felons – put away by Spitzer for so-called victimless crimes – are the people who really need the image overhaul now that they are out of jail. Their stories demonstrate that prostitution convictions, and even having admitted to selling sex, are obstacles to other employment in the US.
Unlike the hubristic Spitzer, each comes off as likeable and business-minded, with proven sales and interpersonal skills. They would otherwise be getting along in life, but felony convictions prevent their rising above the scandals in which they fell.
Work and business opportunities are necessary to anyone's efforts to resume a normal life. A report from the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Centre found that people turn to the sex industry for economic reasons, often with goals like paying school tuition and supplementing low wages in other jobs, jobs sometimes tied to long-term goals. Waldroup, whose work with the agency supported his painting, and Dupre, with her singing aspirations, both bear witness to the idea of sex work subsidising art.
The report also documented that some sex workers feared arrest and conviction because that would hamper their efforts to attain larger goals, including working outside the sex sector. Boom or bust, it's the economics of the sex industry that draws people to it, and a prostitution-related conviction can leave a person stuck in sex work because they may not be hired by other employers. As stripper, author and blogger Jo Weldon points out, no one ever says they got into sex work because they needed the sex.
The Eliot Spitzer scandal's true victims | Melissa Ditmore http://t.co/vKPmOXZ via @guardian
In 2005, Spitzer, then attorney general, prosecuted owners and employees of the escort agency New York Confidential, sending top-rated escort-turned-author Natalie McLennan and artist-turned-booker Hulbert Waldroup to prison. As governor, Spitzer signed a law increasing penalties for clients of prostitutes (PDF). When it came out that he was himself a client, Spitzer resigned. He was not charged with any crime.
CeeCee Suwal served six months and has a felony conviction for arranging Spitzer's meeting with the escort that led to his downfall. Each appears in a new documentary, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, to be released across the US on 12 November, this week.
One person who isn't interviewed, however, is Ashley Dupre. She was the escort Spitzer met in Washington, DC; after the scandal broke, she later became a NY Post columnist. Director Alex Gibney's visually beautiful film attempts to rehabilitate Spitzer's image. Dupre is slammed for her media appearances – seemingly because they inhibited a comeback for Spitzer. Her former boss, CeeCee, is far more generous, praising Dupre's ability to move ahead after her role in the scandal.
Spitzer is a wealthy man with no criminal record who now hosts a CNN show. Gibney has misplaced his efforts attempting to vindicate Spitzer. Instead, those convicted felons – put away by Spitzer for so-called victimless crimes – are the people who really need the image overhaul now that they are out of jail. Their stories demonstrate that prostitution convictions, and even having admitted to selling sex, are obstacles to other employment in the US.
Unlike the hubristic Spitzer, each comes off as likeable and business-minded, with proven sales and interpersonal skills. They would otherwise be getting along in life, but felony convictions prevent their rising above the scandals in which they fell.
Work and business opportunities are necessary to anyone's efforts to resume a normal life. A report from the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Centre found that people turn to the sex industry for economic reasons, often with goals like paying school tuition and supplementing low wages in other jobs, jobs sometimes tied to long-term goals. Waldroup, whose work with the agency supported his painting, and Dupre, with her singing aspirations, both bear witness to the idea of sex work subsidising art.
The report also documented that some sex workers feared arrest and conviction because that would hamper their efforts to attain larger goals, including working outside the sex sector. Boom or bust, it's the economics of the sex industry that draws people to it, and a prostitution-related conviction can leave a person stuck in sex work because they may not be hired by other employers. As stripper, author and blogger Jo Weldon points out, no one ever says they got into sex work because they needed the sex.
The Eliot Spitzer scandal's true victims | Melissa Ditmore http://t.co/vKPmOXZ via @guardian
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