Woman accused of extorting $400K out of Spitzer arraigned

Bronx prosecutors accuse a woman of extorting nearly $400,000 out of governor-turned-developer Eliot Spitzer. Svetlana Travis, a Russian national, reportedly had an affair with Spitzer and repeatedly threatened to tell his family if he didn’t cough up money.

“For over two years, [Spitzer] was forced to regularly pay the defendant [between] $3,000 to $50K,” Bronx prosecutor Thomas Boyle said in a statement.

“These payments were in the form of checks . . . and wire payments to name and bank account of the defendant,” he added. “On multiple occasions she would then transfer large amounts of money . . . to Russian banks.”

Boyle took the case after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance recused himself.

Prosecutors accuse Travis, who was arrested Monday after returning from Russia, of running a “systemic and protracted extortion scheme” between 2014 and 2016, according to the New York Post.

The relationship between Spitzer [TRDataCustom] and Travis became public in February, when she accused him of choking her in a Plaza Hotel room . Spitzer, who runs development firm Spitzer Enterprises, initially sued Travis for extortion, but withdrew his complaint last month.

Travis was evicted from her Upper East Side apartment in February after neighbors complained that she was running an escort service out of her apartment. Prosecutors say she also extorted another man to pay for the lease on that pad.

The judge set Travis’ bail at $1 million. [NYP] — Konrad Putzier