Femme fatale Ashley Dupre

Ashley Dupre enjoyed temporary celebrity in 2008 in connection with the political fall from grace of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer, who as his state’s attorney general had taken a hard line on prostitution and corruption, was outed as a client of Dupre and other call girls.

The indiscretion that ended Sptizer’s political career involved a February 2008 $4,300 transaction with Dupre at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. He had reserved the room under the name of a friend—not the most friendly of gestures. To his credit, however, Spitzer resigned as governor when the sordid facts came out.

Dupre was born Ashley Youmans and had adopted Dupre as a stage name for a hoped-for career in music. She recorded a couple of songs but found there was a quicker, more reliable way to make money: working for the Emperors Club VIP “escort service.”

The shapely, brown-haired Dupre was also involved in a controversy with the Girls Gone Wild business of Joe Francis. She had appeared on the show when she was 17 but under the name she found on a lost driver’s license. The actual owner of the license sued her for defamation in 2008 due to this use.

This story of “Client 9” and “Kristin” in one of many hard-to-explain episodes in which a wealthy and powerful man in the public eye somehow convinces himself that he can do whatever he wishes and get away with it.