Three years ago, the chairman of Gristedes, the New York City supermarket chain, was staring down the barrel of an investigation by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over alleged underpayment of deliverymen.

The chairman, John Catsimatidis, was holding out for a reduced penalty, but Mr. Spitzer wasn’t budging. He agreed to pay a $3.25 million settlement, all the while fuming that Mr. Spitzer strong-armed him. “You have to settle in these races. Nobody wants to go through a full-blown trial,” Mr. Catsimatidis told a Washington Post reporter in 2005.

Now, Mr. Catsimatidis, one of the city’s legendary entrepreneurs, is on board the Spitzer bandwagon among the more than two dozen members of “Corporate Leaders for Spitzer.”

The Spitzer campaign yesterday announced the formation of the group, flaunting endorsements from a battery of venture capitalists, investors, and executives, the type of support that could help shield the attorney general from claims made by his Republican opponent, John Faso, that he’s anti-business.

“It dilutes Faso’s charges,” a Democratic political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, who worked as an adviser to Mr. Spitzer’s 1998 attorney general campaign, said.

Among those vouching for Mr. Spitzer include investor John Dyson, who served as a deputy mayor for economic development in the Giuliani administration and was the point man for rebuilding infrastructure in Lower Manhattan following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

One of the better-known executives backing Mr. Spitzer is Wilbur Ross, who used to be married to a former lieutenant governor, Betsy McCaughey. Mr. Ross is a billionaire bankruptcy adviser turned investor who has made a fortune welding together struggling companies in the coal, steel, textiles, and auto parts industries.One of his companies, the International Coal Group, owns Sago mine, where 12 workers died in an explosion in January. Former executives of the ICG accused Mr. Ross of knowing about the mine’s safety problems before the disaster. Mr. Ross contends that he is not responsible.

Other members include Blair Effron, Alan Patricof, and Steven Rattner, who were important fund-raisers for Senator Kerry’s 2004 presidential race.

The chairmen of “Corporate Leaders for Spitzer” are Daniel Carp, a former CEO of Kodak, Donald Marron, the chairman and CEO of Lightyear Capital, veteran investment banker Felix Rohatyn, Carver Bankcorp’s president, Deborah Wright, and Heidi Nauleau, the chairwoman of Aarque Companies and the regional vice chairwoman of the Business Council of New York State, a fiscally conservative group that represents business interests.

At a press conference announcing the group, Mr. Spitzer acknowledged that his relationship with Wall Street has been stormy but said it’s one based on respect for principles.

“I have not been universally popular in every small quarter of the financial sector,” he said. “The relationship I have with the business community writ large is one of respect for the decisions we’ve made, respect for the understanding that everything we did was designed to ensure integrity, honesty, transparency, which are the necessary prerequisites for the strength of the financial sector.”

With the general election campaign in full swing, Mr. Faso has been unleashing attacks on Mr. Spitzer, accusing him of launching “phony” investigations of Wall Street and of plotting to raise taxes.

Mr. Faso has been insisting that Mr. Spitzer’s promise not to raise taxes and his spending proposals won’t work. He says the cost of Mr. Spitzer’s proposed health care, education, and property tax plans add up to more than $50 billion and dwarf Mr. Spitzer’s proposed $11 billion savings plan.

Mr. Spitzer is pledging to provide health coverage to all uninsured New York children, give New York City schools an additional $4 billion to $6 billion in annual operating aid, and to dedicate state funds to lower property taxes for homeowners.

Yesterday, the Faso campaign went live with a Web site, spitzerspending.com, designed as a parody of Mr. Spitzer’s campaign site. It features a “Spitzer tax computer” that estimates how much New Yorkers will see their taxes go up under a Spitzer administration.

A married couple with three children and a household income of $100,000 would see their taxes rise by an average of $2,170, according to the campaign’s automated estimate.

Mr. Spitzer and Democrats are playing both offense and defense. On Wednesday, Mr. Spitzer pushed back, labeling Mr. Faso a “big time lobbyist” in lockstep with Wall Street criminals. At the same time, the state Democratic Party is attacking Mr. Faso for taking “extreme” positions on legislation while he served in the state Assembly.

Mr. Faso voted against a bill that would have prohibited police from asking alleged rape victims to take a lie-detector test and vote against another bill that would increase penalties for the crime of stalking.