In a startlingly swift fall from grace, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after getting caught in a call-girl scandal that made a mockery of his straight-arrow image and left him facing the prospect of criminal charges and perhaps disbarment.
"I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people's work," Spitzer said on Wednesday, his weary-looking wife, Silda, standing at his side, again, as the corruption-fighting politician once known as Mr Clean answered for his actions for the second time in three days.
He made the announcement without securing a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, though a law enforcement official said the former governor was still believed to be negotiating one. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Spitzer will be succeeded on Monday by Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, a fellow Democrat who will be New York's first black governor and the nation's first legally blind chief executive.
The resignation brought the curtain down on a riveting three-day drama -- played out, sometimes, as farce -- that made Spitzer an instant punchline on late-night TV and fascinated Americans with the spectacle of a crusading politician exposed as a hypocrite.
His dizzying downfall was met with glee and the popping of champagne corks among many on Wall Street, where Spitzer was seen as a sanctimonious bully for attacking big salaries and abusive practices in the financial industry when he was New York attorney general.
And his resignation brought relief at the state Capitol in Albany after days of excruciating tension and uncertainty.
"Some rules can't be broken, and when they are broken there are consequences," Democratic State Assemblyman John McEneny said. "In this case, one of the most promising careers I've seen in a generation."
The scandal erupted on Monday after federal law enforcement officials disclosed that a wiretap had caught the 48-year-old father of three teenage daughters spending thousands of dollars on a call girl at a fancy Washington hotel on the night before Valentine's Day.
Investigators said he had arranged for a prostitute named "Kristen" to take the train down from New York while he was in the nation's capital to testify before a congressional subcommittee about the bond industry.
"Kristen," a call girl for the high-priced escort service Emperors Club VIP agency, was revealed to be Ashley Alexandra Dupre, 22, the New York Times reported.
With every development, it became increasingly clear that Spitzer, politically, was finished.
Law enforcement officials said the governor -- the millionaire heir to a New York real estate fortune -- had hired prostitutes several times before and had spent tens of thousands of dollars, and perhaps as much as US$80,000, on Emperors Club VIP, whose women charge as much as US$5,500 an hour.
After making a watery-eyed, non-specific public apology on Monday with his wife by his side, Spitzer continued to talk to family and advisers through Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, aides said, he had decided to resign.
"Over the course of my public life, I've insisted, I believe correctly, that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself," he said.
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