Ex-madam who ran against Spitzer gets prison term

LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A madam-turned-candidate who ran against former Gov. Eliot Spitzer in the city comptroller’s race last year was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for selling prescription drugs illegally.

A tearful Kristin Davis apologized to the court before she was sentenced, saying that she had turned her life around and that a prison sentence would cause her to lose her apartment and threaten her new cosmetology license.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos, though, noted her previous conviction.

“As soon as you were done with probation, you began to break the law,” he said of the onetime hedge fund employee.

Ramos said the courts needed to demonstrate that the abuse of prescription drugs was a “significant problem that will be dealt with appropriately.”

Davis, a 39-year-old who openly describes herself as an “ex-Manhattan madam,” pleaded guilty in 2008 to promoting prostitution and spent four months in solitary confinement in jail.

She described her incarceration as “hell” and said issues that arose caused her to seek medical help and led her down a path to a new crime.

“I’m deeply sorry and deeply ashamed of myself,” she said.

Spitzer resigned as governor in 2008 after he was identified as a client of another escort service.

Davis, who was arrested weeks after Spitzer’s resignation, has long said she also provided call girls to Spitzer, but her claim hasn’t been proved.

She ran for governor in 2010 as a candidate of her Anti-Prohibition Party, drawing more than 20,000 votes. She pushed to decriminalize prostitution and legalize and tax marijuana.

Then she launched her comptroller bid last year, three months before Spitzer jumped into the Democratic primary just days before the deadline to file.

In August 2013, Davis was arrested for selling sleeping pills, muscle relaxants and anti-anxiety drugs illegally to an FBI informant between January and April of that year.

In March, she pleaded guilty to distributing prescription medication. Federal sentencing guidelines called for her to serve three to five years in prison, though even the government acknowledged that a below-guideline sentence was appropriate.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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