Eliot Spitzer was on the brink of resigning as Governor of New York yesterday after the crusading former prosecutor once known as The Sheriff of Wall Street was exposed as Client 9 of an international prostitution ring.

Mr Spitzer’s forced departure would clear the way for his deputy David Paterson to become the first black governor of the state — and the first legally blind governor in US history.

Aides of Mr Spitzer and Mr Paterson, New York’s LieutenantGovernor, were reportedly holding “transition meetings” on the expected transfer of power.

James Tedisco, the leader of the Republican minority in the state assembly, said that he received a call from Mr Paterson on Monday asking if he would be willing to work with him. “He called me to ask if we would give him the benefit of the doubt, and go forward,” Mr Tedisco said. “I told him we would.” Mr Tedisco threatened to seek Mr Spitzer’s impeachment if he did not stand down within 48 hours.

New York state politics ground to a halt because of the sex scandal, which left even Mr Spitzer’s harshest critics dumbfounded.

Mr Spitzer, the scourge of whitecollar criminals of Wall Street during eight years as New York State Attorney-General, took office as Governor pledging to clean up state government.

He issued a humiliating public apology on Monday after being identified as Client 9 in six secretly recorded telephone calls to set up a tryst with an “American, petite, very pretty brunette” prostitute called Kristen in the Mayflower hotel, Washington, on the eve of St Valentine’s Day.

The wiretap also captured Kristen discussing with a madam Client 9’s alleged preference for unsafe sex.

The madam asked Kristen if Client 9 “would ask you to do things that you, like, might not think were safe — you know — I mean that . . . very basic things”. Kristen responded: “I have a way of dealing with that . . . I’d be, like listen dude, you really want the sex?”

Mr Spitzer had to sneak past his state police bodyguards for his tryst with Kristen. He reportedly rented a second hotel room for the prostitute as George Fox, the name of a close friend and leading campaign contributor.

The recorded conversations make clear that Mr Spitzer was a regular client of the Emperors Club VIP escort service, because he had credit from previous encounters and left a deposit for future services.

Newsday reported yesterday that he had at least seven or eight liaisons with prostitutes from the service around the country, including in Washington and Florida, paying several thousand dollars each time.

Mr Spitzer, 48, who is married with three daughters, faces possible charges stemming not from the sex, but from his payments to the alleged prostitution ring.

The former prosecutor, who has put at least two prostitution rings on trial in his career, could be charged with concealing the purpose of the payments to a criminal enterprise — an offence called structuring that carries a five-year prison term.

He could also be at risk of a separate charge because the prostitute crossed state lines by travelling by train from New York to Washington for the date. The investigation began as an inquiry into suspicious cash transfers involving the New York Governor that investigators suspected initially might be linked to bribery or campaign finance violations.

Using a former prostitute for the escort service as an informant, investigators obtained a judge’s approval for wiretaps and an examination of banking records. They traced the payments to the Emperors Club, which charged up to $5,500 (£2,750) an hour for sex with more than 50 prostitutes in cities from London to Los Angeles.

Mr Spitzer has retained the prestigious Manhattan law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, which is expected to negotiate with prosecutors to avoid any risk of a felony conviction that could cost him his lawyer’s licence.

Mr Paterson, 53, is the son of the late state senator Basil Paterson, one of the so-called “Gang of Four” politicians who dominated New York’s black stronghold of Harlem. He has been legally blind since an eye infection at the age of 3 months.

Mr Paterson took his father’s Harlem seat in the state senate and was picked as Mr Spitzer’s surprise running mate.

In the presidential campaign Mr Paterson has been a Hillary Clinton loyalist. The Times found him campaigning for her outside a polling station in South Carolina during January’s primary, seeking to persuade black voters to back the New York senator over Barack Obama.

If Mr Spitzer steps aside Mr Paterson will become a super-delegate for Mrs Clinton at the Democratic nomination convention in his place. But Mrs Clinton would lose one precious super-delegate because no one would inherit Mr Paterson’s ex officio vote as a Democratic lieutenant-governor.

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