A guilty plea in Spitzer ring

NEW YORK - A woman who helped run the prostitution ring in the scandal that brought down former Gov. Eliot Spitzer pleaded guilty yesterday to a pair of federal conspiracy charges.

Cecil Suwal, 23, giggled and cried her way through a brief hearing at a federal court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors portrayed Suwal in an indictment as the savvy manager behind the Emperors Club V.I.P. escort service, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to prostitutes and controlling shell companies used to hide the profits.

"I was involved in just the daily operations of this disgusting thing," she said. "Basically, it was, I guess, a prostitution ring that was attempting to launder money or whatever."

Suwal's attorney suggested that his client had been led naively into the business by her boyfriend, Mark Brener, 62, the service's alleged ringleader. *