Spitzer being pushed to resign as he faces possible charges

US:NEW YORK governor Eliot Spitzer was last night under mounting pressure to resign as he faced possible criminal charges over his involvement with an expensive prostitution ring. As Mr Spitzer stayed inside his Manhattan apartment, Republican legislators warned that they would move to impeach him unless he stepped down within 48 hours.

"We are preparing the resolution and the paperwork right now but we'll give the governor some time, he may be making some decisions or some negotiations with the law enforcement officials," said James Tedisco, the Republican minority leader in the New York assembly.

"I think we have to give him at least some time to do that. We need somebody to stand up and lead us, and Eliot Spitzer is incapable of doing that right now." Mr Spitzer has apologised for acting in a manner that "violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong" but has not given any details of his involvement with Emperor's Club VIP, an international network of prostitutes charging up to $5,500 (€3,578) an hour.

The governor has been identified as "Client 9" in an FBI affidavit that describes how he arranged to have a prostitute travel from New York to Washington to meet him at a hotel last month.

Mr Spitzer could face federal charges under the Mann Act, which makes it a crime to transport prostitutes across state lines or to persuade prostitutes to cross state lines for sexual purposes. The Mann Act is seldom used except against human traffickers and US prosecutors rarely charge prostitutes' clients, even though hiring a prostitute is illegal in most states.

The case against Emperor's Club VIP, which saw four people indicted last week, started when banks noticed the frequent cash transfers from several accounts and filed suspicious activity reports with the Internal Revenue Service. The accounts were traced back to Mr Spitzer, prompting public corruption investigators to open an inquiry that led to the prostitution ring.

Mr Spitzer, who is married with three teenage daughters, became governor in January 2007 after a landslide victory, promising to stamp out corruption in New York government in the same way that he took on Wall Street while state attorney general.

As attorney general, Mr Spitzer's high-profile prosecutions of corporate targets won him the nicknames "Eliot Ness", after the investigator who pursued Al Capone, and the "Sheriff of Wall Street". His prosecutions included a few criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and tourism involving prostitutes.