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The Emperors' Club's Front Company

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By Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 4:14 PM ET

Read more of Slate's coverage of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal.

Among the federal crimes Eliot Spitzer may have committed is a financial sleight of hand called "structuring." Spitzer made incremental cash payments to Emperors' Club VIP, bypassing an available PayPal option ("using Visa or MasterCard"; see Page 2). Consequently, the erstwhile New York governor may never have clapped eyes on the Web site for QAT Consulting, the shell company where all Emperors' Club remittances ended up. Had Spitzer clicked through to QAT (below and on the following three pages), he surely would have noticed that the company specialized "in all legal ways in arranging suitable and lawful USA offshore structuring." Given his crusading record as New York's attorney general, Spitzer now may be even more dismayed to be linked publicly with a financial shell game than he is to be associated publicly with prostitution.

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As "Client-9," Spitzer paid $4,300 for his Valentine's Eve tryst. Had he instead availed himself of QAT's "marketing," "design," and "financial services," he would have saved himself some money and might have experienced equal satisfaction. For example, had he procured "strategic planning" or "graphic design" (Page 3), he might have paid only "$600-$3000 depending on complicity [sic] of the project." If the former prosecutor had opted for "office design" assistance (Page 4), he'd have been able "to get exactly who you want" for the bargain price of only "$800-$1600." No doubt some clients needed their strategies planned or their offices designed two or three times a week.

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