The feds tightened the noose on ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer yesterday, as the booker who set up his trysts with hookers pleaded guilty and agreed to spill the beans to a grand jury.
Temeka Lewis, 32, ‘fessed up to prostitution and money-laundering charges and promised to tell the feds everything she knows about the Emperors Club VIP, including a blow-by-blow description of Spitzer’s dealings with hooker Ashley Alexandra Dupre, a k a “Kristen.”
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Dressed demurely in a white blouse and tan slacks, Lewis admitted to Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz that she worked for the prostitution ring for three years, coordinating with clients over the phone to pair them with prostitutes and arrange for payments.
“I’m hopeful that she can avoid prison time,” defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo said outside court, adding that under the deal, Lewis has an “obligation to be truthful with regard to any matters she’s asked about by prosecutors or the FBI.”
“She just wants to get this behind her,” said Agnifilo. “She’s basically a very good person. Sitting at a defense table in a federal courthouse is the last place she imagined she’d be. I have no doubt she’ll never be in trouble again.”
The feds secretly recorded numerous conversations between Lewis and Spitzer – identified in court papers as “Client-9” – in which they allegedly discuss thousands of dollars in payments the former governor made through a shell company called QAT Consulting.
Spitzer covered hotel costs, train fare and other expenses. He was taped telling Lewis how Dupre should meet him on Feb. 13 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where the door to Room 871 would be left ajar.
“The door would not be visibly open, but if someone pushed it, the door would open,” court papers state.
After the tryst, Lewis candidly told Dupre that she knew Spitzer asked for things that “you might not think were safe,” in reference to his preference for sex without a condom.
Dupre said, “I have a way of dealing with that . . . I’d be, like, listen, dude, you really want the sex?”
Lewis’ plea deal in Manhattan federal court unfolded as Dupre resurfaced at a bus terminal not far from her mom’s Wall, NJ, home. She hopped a bus to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and later headed to her old haunts in the Flatiron District.
In copping her plea, Lewis said she arranged for hookers to cross state lines and instructed multiple clients to make payments to QAT, “directing them to conceal what it was actually for.”
The charges carry a maximum prison term of 25 years.
Agnifilo estimated that Lewis would likely have faced 16 months behind bars under federal sentencing guidelines, if not for her agreement to cooperate in the probe.
Following the plea, the judge denied an unusual request by Lewis’ lawyer to keep her cooperation deal a secret by sealing court papers that spell out the agreement.
A graduate of the University of Virginia, Lewis worked for Emperors Club from November 2005 until her arrest in March.
She landed her job with the prostitution ring through a newspaper ad, initially thinking it was a legitimate escort service and modeling agency, but quickly learned the ropes of booking hookers and “decided to stay,” Agnifilo said.
Lewis must forfeit approximately $3,000 under her plea deal with the feds.
She owned up to charges stemming from her dealings with four Emperors Club clients, although court papers suggest she had a hand in managing up to 50 prostitutes in California, Washington, New York, Paris and London.
The booker is the first in a group of four accused ring members arrested in March to enter a guilty plea.
Sources familiar with the case said other pleas are sure to follow, since all the defendants have been attempting to make deals with the feds. They include ringleader Mark Brener, 62, and his girlfriend, the petite madam, Cecil Suwal, 23.
Brener is expected to plead guilty to federal charges in the near future, but his lawyer, Murray Richman, said Brener would not agree to testify as part of the deal.
Prosecutors are seeking to seize nearly $3 million in cash, plus property, court papers show.