The photos on the Emperors Club VIP Web site looked as if they could have been pulled from the pages of Maxim magazine—except that the women's faces were cropped out. There were busty ladies like "Chrissy," whose blond hair spilled over her breasts, and waifs like "Sienna," whose twiglike arms were crossed behind her head. According to a screen grab of the site, which has been taken down, Emperors Club VIP "is the most preferred international social introduction service for those accustomed to excellence. Introducing the most impressive models to leading gentlemen of the world is our expertise." The authorities, however, characterize it more crudely. The outfit, they say, is nothing more than a high-priced online prostitution ring.
Emperors Club VIP has now been thrust into the spotlight on account of one alleged customer in particular: a man the FBI designated as "Client 9" but who the New York Times, citing two law enforcement sources, claims is New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. On Feb. 13 Client 9 allegedly met up in Washington, D.C., with an Emperors Club employee named "Kristen," described by her booker as "an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds," according to an FBI charging document. Client 9, the document alleges, agreed to pay thousands of dollars for Kristen's time and expenses, including a room at the posh Mayflower Hotel, minibar charges, room service and a train ticket from New York. When he was informed by the booker that Kristen was on her way that evening, Client 9 supposedly replied, "Great, okay, wonderful."
The Emperors Club apparently targeted the most elite stratum of customers. It ranked its girls on a scale ranging from three to seven diamonds, with hourly rates starting at $1,000 and daily rates ranging from $10,000 to $31,000 depending on "the individual education, sophistication, and ambiance [sic] created." Emperors Club prostitutes sometimes traversed the globe for appointments, federal prosecutors charge, servicing customers in Miami, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Vienna, and Washington, D.C. With such steep prices, Emperors Club VIP maintained selective standards. In a phone conversation described in the FBI charging document, a manager expresses doubts that the agency would be able to "market" a prostitute that in his opinion looked like a "butcher."
The group's high-priced hookers demanded a fair cut of the action. A prospective prostitute complained in an e-mail that a rate of 500 British pounds per hour (more than $1,000) was not enough. "This is a kind of money I make very easily in photoshoots, " she wrote. Five hundred pounds per hour "is not a price I would ever consider of doing it for." She also wrote that she was "shock[ed]" and "confuse[d]" that another prostitute had to have sex with a john twice in an hour without even being taken to dinner first.
Emperors Club VIP required its customers to prepay for services and would accept cash, money orders, wire transfers or American Express. Payment by credit card was problematic, however. According to the charging document, two of the managers discussed the prostitutes' not taking proper imprints of clients' cards. One of the managers complained, "If American Express were to ask to see that, as a legitimate business, you can't even deliver something like that."
The charging documents contain numerous suggestions that Client 9 was a regular customer of the escort service. For instance, Client 9 reportedly sought to apply an existing balance of about $400 or $500 to his tryst with Kristen. And when he met her he handed her $4,300 "in order to avoid payment issues in the future." Client 9 also seemed cautious about the way he arranged payment. According to the FBI he declined to send the required prepayment to Emperors Club VIP using "traditional wire transferring," opting instead to mail payment in an envelope with no return address. The day before the Washington dalliance, when the package still had not arrived, the booker asked Client 9 if he had sent it to the right address. He answered, "Yup, same as in the past, no question about it," according to the affidavit. (Federal authorities began wiretapping the Emperors Club phone lines after a confidential informant who had once worked there and an undercover officer established that there was enough evidence for a judge to sign off on the surveillance.)
