Did Roger Stone bring down Eliot Spitzer?

It’s a question that many are asking following a report this weekend in the Miami Herald that described a letter the notorious Republican operative supposedly wrote to the FBI in November in which he passed along a prophetic tip that Governor Spitzer was patronizing prostitutes.

His apparent contact with investigators has added a wrinkle to the narrative. Previous reports, in the New York Times and other outlets, about the Spitzer investigation have cited law enforcement sources saying the probe began when HSBC filed a suspicious activity report related to financial transactions made between Mr. Spitzer and two shell companies.

Reports about Mr. Stone’s involvement suggest that he may have been the real tipster — not the bank. I am told the following story:

One night in early September in Miami, Mr. Stone was sitting at a crowded bar in an adult nightclub when he began chatting with an “extremely attractive” blonde woman. He said he did some “political stuff and corporate stuff.” She said she was a single-mother who made “good money” as a call girl.

She told him that the service that employed her catered to high-powered business executives in Florida, but one of the clients happened to be the governor of New Jersey. “New Jersey?” asked Mr. Stone. “You mean the bearded guy?” No, she said. “The lawman, the bald guy.” She had meant to say New York.

She said she would have been selected to entertain the governor when he visited Florida if it were not for the fact that she had blonde hair. The governor met up with one of her “girlfriends,” a brunette. Mr. Stone left the club later that evening and jotted the conservation on a notepad.

Later in September, Mr. Stone said he received a call from an FBI official in New York who asked if he would come in for questioning, a source said.

The source claims that Mr. Stone did not know what the FBI was pursuing but referred authorities to his lawyers. The letter Mr. Stone claims to have sent to the FBI is dated November 19 — almost two months after he was contacted.

FBI officials have not confirmed receipt of the letter.

Aside from a remark about Mr. Spitzer’s bedroom attire, the letter includes some specific details that have emerged since news broke of the governor’s involvement in the prostitution ring. It says the governor paid through a prearranged transfer and says the governor had spent tens of thousands of dollars on call girls. The information was apparently gleaned from that conversation with the prostitute.

The letter is signed by an attorney named Paul Rolf Jensen, who has an office in Costa Mesa, Calif. In a 2004 article, the Philadelphia Daily News identified Mr. Jensen as a “political operative” who “has worked closely with Stone on several campaigns.” I tried calling “Jensen & Associates” yesterday but got a personal voicemail that suggested a one-man operation, not a large office.

The other lawyer mentioned in the letter, Robert Buschel, also could not be reached for comment. A man who claimed to be his father answered a number that was listed under the younger Buschel’s name and said his son was not commenting on the letter.

The selective leak to the Miami Herald notwithstanding, Mr. Stone isn’t exactly claiming credit for taking out the governor. The coincidences, the timing, the snug narrative don’t seem to faze him. He raises a lot of questions but gamely chooses not to answer them.

“It is so ironic that Spitzer — who should have gone down for egregious campaign finance violations, and abuse of power in the troopergate matter — goes down for something as stupid as paying a hooker(s),” Mr. Stone wrote in an e-mail.

“It’s the hypocrisy that gets you. I have never held myself out to be a ‘Family Values’ example of rectitude. I am a libertarian and a libertine. But Eliot was morally superior, the Sheriff of Wall Street, holier-than-thou. Besides — paybacks are a b—.”

In trying to make sense of the Spitzer investigation, I find it strangely more reassuring to think that Mr. Spitzer was felled not by a motiveless robot that flagged a suspicious transaction but by the man who always knew he had the goods on the governor.

It certainly makes for a better story.

But before we assess Mr. Stone’s claims, let us wait for more facts to arrive. We have not heard from Mr. Stone’s lawyers or FBI authorities. All we have is some vague story about Mr. Stone, an unidentified prostitute, and an unnamed club that gives one the impression that he had something to do with exposing Mr. Spitzer.

The story is told by the same man who denies having left Mr. Spitzer’s father a menacing phone message last year, despite the fact that the recorded voice sounded remarkably like Mr. Stone’s.

jacob@nysun.com