From www.nytimes.com- Federal court records unsealed on Monday at the sentencing of the last of the Emperor’s Club V.I.P. defendants and a defense lawyer’s comments afterward provided the most detailed public account to date of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s involvement with the ring’s prostitutes.

Mr. Spitzer, according to the documents and the lawyer’s comments, met regularly with Emperor’s Club prostitutes, sometimes in cities outside New York and Washington, over 18 months to 2 years, using a variety of aliases and paying with postal money orders.

The court records also contained the first public disclosures by prosecutors of how the investigation began and how it came to focus on the governor’s liaisons with Emperor’s Club prostitutes and the ring.

Mr. Spitzer resigned on March 12, 2008, two days after it was revealed that he was the man identified as Client 9 in an affidavit pertaining to four people charged in the Emperor’s Club case; the affidavit described how Client 9, in several telephone calls with a booker for the ring, arranged an assignation with a prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb 13, 2008.

The records unsealed on Monday at the sentencing of the booker, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 33, included the prosecution’s letter detailing her “substantial assistance” to their investigation and her defense lawyer’s sentencing memorandum.

In the memorandum, Ms. Lewis’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, wrote that she “provided the government with the names of hotels, the approximate dates of meetings, the names of women the governor saw, different names the governor utilized and different ways the governor paid for these sessions.”

The information, he wrote, also included the cities where the liaisons occurred, the period during which they occurred, the regularity with which they occurred and how he wanted the hotel rooms to be booked and reserved, “presumably to conceal his involvement.”

Ms. Lewis pleaded guilty in United States District Court in Manhattan on May 14, 2008, to conspiring to promote prostitution and to helping launder the rings proceeds.

On Monday, Ms. Lewis told Judge Shira A. Scheindlin that she deeply regretted her decision to break the law, calling it “a thoughtless, careless, selfish decision.”

“It was wrong,” she added, saying that she “was solely responsible for the situation.”

Judge Scheindlin responded by saying, “Thank you, Ms. Lewis; nicely put.”

The judge then sentenced her to one year of probation.

After the hearing, Mr. Agnifilo spoke to reporters in the courthouse hallway and elaborated on the memorandum and his comments in court.

He said that over 18 months to 2 years, the governor had arranged “several different liaisons” with women working for the Emperor’s Club. The assignations, he said, took place in cities other than New York or Washington, and the governor paid using postal money orders, a method he called “relatively unsophisticated” and an indication that Mr. Spitzer was spending his own money.

He said information his client had provided helped prosecutors determine that Mr. Spitzer had not used government or campaign money to pay for sex, and thus helped lead to the government’s decision not to charge him.

The government’s letter described publicly for the first time how the investigation began. It has been the subject of speculation, with some questioning whether it had been a politically motivated attack.

The account said that criminal investigators from the I.R.S., “in the course of a regularly conducted review of certain banking activity,” discovered that Mr. Spitzer had arranged suspicious bank transfers from one of his personal accounts to an account in the name of a shell company used by the Emperor’s Club, a version of events that was similar to news reports at the time his involvement with prostitutes was first disclosed.

The letter said a preliminary review of the shell company’s account “revealed millions of dollars of domestic and international wire transfers that were not consistent with legitimate consulting business, but rather indicative of money-laundering activity.”

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan began a criminal investigation into the shell company, according to the letter, and they learned that it was used to operate the prostitution ring, prompting wiretaps that later intercepted Mr. Spitzer arranging the Feb. 13, 2008, liaison.

Mr. Spitzer’s lawyer, Michele Hirshman, was unavailable for comment on Monday.