If you believe the New York Post a Brazilian madam had a key role on the fall of New York governor, Eliot Spitzer. Andréia Schwartz, says the New York daily this Thursday, March 13, helped the American authorities to make its case against Spitzer.
Schwartz, a 33-year old pretty brunette who was born in the Brazilian southeastern state of Espírito Santo, according to the newspaper, was the confidential source who among other things gave investigators copies of checks made to the Emperors Club as evidence of the governor's trysts. .
Andréia worked as a call girl for the Emperors Club VIP, the escort service used by Spitzer, before becoming herself the owner of a brothel and having her own list of famous johns.
During her trial, the Brazilian, who was arrested in 2006, admitted she was guilty of prostitution and drug possession, but was able to strike a deal with federal prosecutors lowering considerably the jail term she might have got.
According to the Post, the Brazilian madam was sentenced earlier this year on February 4 but was able to mysteriously remain in the city for all this time even though there an order of deportation to Brazil against her.
Andréia is being expected back in Brazil this Saturday, March 15. On Thursday, March 13, she was taken to the Brazilian consulate in New York by immigration agent to get her papers since her Brazilian passport has expired.
Schwartz was arrested in June 2006 in New York accused of prostitution, possession of drugs and money laundering. According to court records, which came to light at that time, the Brazilian madam told police that she had been a madam for a year and a half, but that she had made about US$ 1.5 million in prostitution since 2001.
She also revealed that her girls charged from US$ 700 to US$ 1500 an hour for a sexual encounter. Threesomes, which involved two girls, started at US$ 2,000 an hour.
The prosecutor also charged her for trying to buy a whole floor of the luxurious Plaza Hotel in Manhattan's Fifth Avenue using illegal money from a group of Italian investors.
Schwartz's lawyer at the time, Andrew Hoffman, in an interview to CBN Radio CBN from Vitória, capital of Espírito Santo, accused the American police of being overzealous, saying that her client had only been involved in some questionable real estate transactions and that she had had no other trouble with the authorities during the almost six years in which she lived legally in the United States.
Apparently the police started an investigation after receiving complaints from her neighbors who felt bothered by the constant visit of men to her place. Policemen posing as clients looking for sex and cocaine visited her apartment.
They arrested her when she showed a catalog with the call girls who worked for her. Three other women were detained with Andréia when she was arrested June 1st, 2006, in her Manhattan apartment.
Her current lawyer, Anthony Lombardino, told reporters that Schwartz was able to strike a deal with prosecutor Artie McConnell, by which she is being allowed to take to Brazil all her belongings plus US$ 150,000. She will lose, however, her Manhattan apartment, worth about US$ 1.2 million plus about US$ 300,000 she had in her bank account.
