Politics Seen in Nasty Call to Spitzer’s Father

By DANNY HAKIM - City Room Blog

Audio Recording of Voicemail (Includes Strong Language) (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/audio/nyregion/20070821_voicemail.mp3)

ALBANY, Aug. 21 — Lawyers representing Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s father, Bernard Spitzer, say a prominent political consultant who has been working for State Senate Republicans threatened the elder Mr. Spitzer this month in an anonymous, invective-laced phone message.

The allegations against the consultant, Roger J. Stone Jr., were laid out in a letter sent Tuesday to Senator George H. Winner Jr., an upstate Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Stone, a seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics who worked for Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan and for George W. Bush in the 2000 recount battle, adamantly denied the allegation in an interview, calling it “the ultimate dirty trick.” He asserted that allies of Governor Spitzer may have gained access to a phone in his Manhattan apartment to make the threatening call.

The message, left at Bernard Spitzer’s Manhattan office just before 10 p.m. on Aug. 6, says that Mr. Spitzer, 83, a wealthy real estate developer, would be “compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms” to testify about “shady campaign loans” he made to his son during Eliot Spitzer’s unsuccessful campaign for attorney general in 1994.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/nyregion/22stone.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

New York..perish the thought!