By Murray Weiss
MANHATTAN — Ex-prostitute Rebecca Woodard confessed in a tell-all book that she slept with Gov. Eliot Spitzer and also turned tricks under the watchful eye of prosecutors while she worked undercover for them.
But that’s news to the investigators who handled her while trying to unearth dirt on her boss, Anna Gristina, the so-called Millionaire Madam.
Sources familiar with Woodard’s role in the Gristina case maintain she never told them she bedded Spitzer, who she claims in her book, “Call Girl Confidential,” engaged in violent foreplay that included nearly choking her into unconsciousness.
Under her deal with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Woodard was obligated to reveal all wrongdoing before working for them, and she never mentioned Spitzer, who eventually was brought down after admitting to having sex with another call girl, Ashley Dupré.
“This is certainly news to us,” said one source. “Could she have slept with Spitzer, and not told anyone? I guess anything’s possible. But highly, highly unlikely, considering she told us everything else.”
And everything else included tipping off prosecutors to another politician who had an alleged one-night fling with a Gristina hooker: Sen. John Edwards.
DNAinfo New York reported last year that Edwards allegedly had a quickie encounter at an Upper East Side hotel with a prostitute while he was on a swing through New York during his failed presidential campaign. Charges never followed, however.
For his part, Spitzer has vehemently denied Woodard’s allegation, saying it is a complete fabrication to sell books. So did Edwards.
A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. declined comment.
In addition to claiming the rough-sex encounter with Spitzer, Woodard alleges that the DA pimped her out by allowing her to continue to turn tricks while she was working undercover.
Sources say that allegation is hogwash.
In fact, prosecutors explicitly instructed her that she could not continue to engage in any criminal activity, including turning tricks, if she agreed to cooperate with them to get a break in a separate misdemeanor case, the sources say.
In her book, she claims to have made up to $24,000 for a trick.
Why turn state’s evidence if she were pocketing that kind of dough?
She hated Gristina because she got stiffed out of some money, sources said.
“All I can say is Ms. Woodard is quite a character," the source said. “I think she is playing everybody.”
Sources explained that there were numerous reasons they did not want Woodard to turn tricks while working for them. Not the least of them were legitimate liability fears that a john could die during a session, or that a john could contract a sexually transmitted disease from an undercover operative.
They also dismissed her assertion that they tried to tape a clunky recording device on her body to record Gristina's accountant rather than the nimble, lightweight, state-of-the-art recorder that they ultimately put in her handbag.
A publicist for Woodard's book did not immediately return a call for comment.
Woodard has a child with her ex-boyfriend, “Spin Doctors” frontman Chris Barron. The couple was locked in a bitter custody battle at the time of her issues with Gristina and the police. She lost custody, but sees the child regularly.