Paradise Lost

The whole Elliott Spitzer episode is sad. Sad for his family. Sad for the promise that his considerable God-given talents held for the people of New York. Sad for the example he set. Sad for humanity.

Why sad for humanity? Because Elliott Spitzer's story is your story, and mine. No, we don't frequent hookers. But Spitzer's act has a deeper point of origin.

Remember the story of Adam and Eve? They knew the fruit was forbidden. But oh, how good it looked. How ripe, and fresh. And they could just imagine how it would taste. The more they thought about it, the more they lusted for it. They reached a point where they couldn't even see the consequences anymore, or if they did, they had diminished in importance relative to their lust. So they partook. And were banished from Eden.

Paradise lost.

Elliott Spitzer had it all. Wealth. A beautiful wife. Wonderful kids. Respect. A great job. A promising political future. The opportunity to use his considerable wealth, skills, power and intellect for so, so much good.

But there was that forbidden fruit. And all he could think about was how good it looked. What the experience would be like. So he partook.

Paradise lost.

I don't sit in judgment of the man. Jesus taught us to hate the sin, and love the sinner. So he'll be in my prayers.

By the same token, I hope that he is prosecuted for human trafficking, as has been hinted at. Let me explain this apparent contradiction in my views on this matter.

Spitzer spent his career as a relentless prosecutor, and he was good at his job. He shut down several prostitution rings during his stint as New York's Attorney General, and in a speech about busting one of them, he "spoke with revulsion and anger."

His visits to the women employed by this particular prostitution ring were apparently frequent, as the woman he was with most recently - the incident that was his ultimate undoing - reported to her employer that she did not find him "difficult." The response was that he had asked other prostitutes in the ring to do things that were "unsafe."

The repetitiveness of his behavior is also reflected in the reports that when he was told which girl he would be meeting with, he commented that he thought he remembered what she looked like, implying that he had been with her previously.

In this particular tryst, which took place the night before Valentine's Day - which has to make Mrs. Spitzer feel special, and loved - Spitzer called the service to arrange for this particular girl to travel from New York to his hotel room in Washington, DC. And therein may lie his undoing.

Soliciting a prostitute to cross state lines to perform sex acts for hire violates the Mann Act, and is a federal offense. Now, it may seem that this is a bastardization of the law, and that this instance should be discounted. But here's why it shouldn't be - and why I believe Mr. Spitzer should suffer the full consequences of the law.

The enforcement of the Mann Act against human trafficking reflects the fact that existing laws against prostitution, soliciting the same, child pornography, and other such crimes are not enforced strongly enough. The penalties just aren't sufficient to stop the lucrative trade. In other words, the reward outweighs the risk, which in economic terms leads to a surge in market activity.

So great is the demand for human flesh that a new trade route has developed, from former Soviet Republics and other Eastern bloc nations, where organized crime is rampant, as well as from the far East, into Western Europe, Japan, and the US. Much of the activity occurs in Eastern Europe, and the hub of that trade is in Prague, in the Czech Republic.

As long as there is demand, this trade will continue. And it's not down-on-their-luck women hooked on crack who need to pay for their habit, or college students looking for an easy way to pay for school, or bored housewives, or "enterprising" women who decide they can make more money with their bodies than doing anything else - it's not these stereotypical types who voluntarily enter the prostitution trade.

It's girls who are taken from - or sold by - their families by organized crime rings in Russia or elsewhere, literally sold into slavery, abused, transported around the globe, and pressed into service as prostitutes. Eventually, most will resign themselves to the lives they've been forced into, either deciding they're better off than in the homeland, or succumbing to the Stockholm syndrome, or some combination thereof.

And again, as long as there is demand - demand from wealthy, misogynistic serial cheaters like Elliott Spitzer - this trade will continue, and flourish. Because such a man will pay $4,300 for a night with one of these sad creatures. And that's lucrative to all parties involved, except the victim.

Unless the risk premium is increased. And that's where the stronger human trafficking laws come in.

Those laws recognized the weakness in the penalties imposed by the existing laws. So - at the urging of Attorneys General across the nation, like Mr. Spitzer - the Mann Act was applied to these cases aggressively, recognizing that such activity is tantamount to slave-trading.

As Attorney General of New York, Mr. Spitzer would have wanted those laws enforced in this case if the perp had been a captain of industry or a Wall Street mogul, for the very reasons I've articulated above. So I think he should get his wish.

A friend of mine, who is a brother in Christ and himself a former prosecutor, provides an excellent counterpoint to Mr. Spitzer's story.

Charlie Lamento was a local prosecutor and criminal investigator. His work sometimes involved investigating and prosecuting local prostitution rings, which often had ties back to the Eastern European sex-slave trade. And what Charlie saw sickened him.

He resolved to fight it. But he knew it was too hard to fight from Midwestern America.

So he joined the International Institute for Christian Studies (IICS, at www.iics.com). IICS places Christian educators in universities around the world, in the belief that the more educators of higher learning are adding a faith-based component to the influence they have on the world's future leaders, the better.

Similar to missionaries, IICS professors have to raise the money for their appointments themselves. Charlie raised over $50,000. He then left the comfort and familiarity of his job and his home, and set out for Prague, to teach law. And more.

Charlie is also working with local Czech prosecutors to teach them how to better investigate these cases, and how to better prosecute under the laws already on the books, which he says are a very good start. He's also working to try to help them influence lawmakers to strengthen the laws. Charlie is a one-man crusader against these terrible crimes. And he's a man I'd bet on to win.

I know what Attorney General Elliott Spitzer would have said about whether he deserved to be prosecuted under the Human Trafficking laws. More importantly, I know what Charlie Lamento, another prosecutor and a forgiving Christian, would say. And that's good enough for me.

(You can donate to IICS by going to the website - again, www.iics.com. Be sure to include Charlie's name for donations made on his behalf.)