Metro

Spitzer tries to block the former AIG bigs from his e-mails

Disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has filed legal papers to block the former bosses of insurance giant AIG from gaining access to his personal e-mails.

The decade-old feud dates back to Spitzer’s tenure as state attorney general, when he brought civil fraud charges against AIG and its leaders, CEO Hank Greenberg and CFO Howard Smith. Some of the charges are still pending.

Smith filed suit in 2008 to compel the Attorney General’s Office to obtain and release Spitzer’s e-mails from a private account to try to prove he engaged in biased, unfair prosecution against them. Spitzer had moved on to the governorship by then.

Spitzer, who later resigned in a call-girl scandal, urged a judge to toss out Smith’s Freedom of Information Law lawsuit.

“Private individuals like Mr. Spitzer are not subject to FOIL, and cannot be named as respondents in FOIL proceedings for the purpose of securing records from them,” Spitzer lawyers Andrew Celli and Katherine Rosenfeld said in the 31-page motion to dismiss the suit, which was filed in Albany state Supreme Court.

The public-access law covers only state agencies, not former government officials who are out of office, Spitzer’s legal team argued.

In prior public statements, Spitzer insisted that no private e-mails about his handling of the AIG case exist. The latest legal papers don’t mention the issue.

The Attorney General’s Office had said it searched Spitzer’s office accounts and had not found anything related to the AIG cases. But the court then ruled that the AG’s Office also had an obligation to search Spitzer’s private e-mail accounts.

Spitzer’s lawyers responded in their motion: “No court of which we are aware has ever required an agency to reach out and obtain records from a former employee in the manner sought here.”