THE GAL WHO LAID GOV LOW

By LUKAS I. ALPERT and JENNIFER FERMINO


March 13, 2008 -- The woman for whom Gov. Spitzer tossed away his political career, reputation and, perhaps, his family finally has a face.
Ashley Alexandra Dupre, a 22-year-old aspiring singer from the Jersey Shore, is the high-priced hooker at the heart of the sordid, sex-filled drama. Her name was revealed on the same day Spitzer resigned from office.

MORE COVERAGE

* NEW PHOTOS: Ashley and her Family
* MORE PHOTOS: Ashley On MySpace
* Gov-to-Be: New York Will Be Fine

* Hear the Audio of Paterson's Interview with The Post's Fredric Dicker

Until now, she has been publicly known only as "Kristen" - a woman the love gov ordered from the skin peddlers at Emperors Club VIP for a tryst at a Washington hotel on Feb.13.

But a relative said Dupre - born Ashley Youmans and raised in Belmar, NJ - and Kristen are one and the same.

"I love her. I am by her side. I found out from her," her brother, Kyle Youmans, told The Post. "The family is supporting her. She is fine."

He referred all other questions to his sister's lawyer, Don Buchwald, who would not confirm his client's involvement in the scandal.

Dupre earlier told The New York Times - which said she has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury - that the stress of being at the heart of the scandal was wearing on her.

"I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," she said. "This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated."

Her mother, Carolyn Capalbo, told the paper she didn't think her daughter knew who Spitzer was when they hooked up.

"She is a very bright girl who can handle someone like the governor," Capalbo said. "But she also is a 22-year-old, not a 32-year-old or a 42-year-old, and she obviously got involved in something much larger than her."

The details of Spitzer's alleged dalliance with Dupre emerged amid a federal probe into the international escort ring. The governor was caught on a wiretap arranging for "Kristen" - a 5-foot-5, 105-pound brunette - to travel to the Mayflower Hotel in DC.

How Dupre fell into the world of high-end prostitution is not entirely clear, but friends from Wall HS in Belmar, NJ, said she had always had a thing for older men.

"She never dated anyone in our school," said a woman who would only gave her first name, Stephanie.

This 22-year-old, who was a year behind Dupre, said, "She was never slutty. She would date older guys, but it wasn't like she was running around sleeping with everyone."

Dupre hints on her MySpace page that she had a difficult life.

"My path has not been easy. When I was 17, I left home," she wrote. "It was my decision and I've never looked back. Left my hometown. Left a broken family. Left abuse. Left and learned what it was like to have everything, and lose it, again and again.

"Learned what it was like to wake up one day and have the people you care about most gone . . . I have abused drugs. I have been broke and homeless. But, I survived, on my own."

Another relative told The Post, "She's a very sweet girl . . . She's always been very good to me and my children."

Dupre said she had recently ended a tumultuous relationship with a man who "walked out me" after she discovered he had fathered two children, the Times reported.

In August, she posted on her blog a message about difficult relationships.

"If you are in a relationship, and it is 'doing absolutly [sic] nothing' for you, makes you feel bad about yourself or situations, just causing unessesary [sic] drama, and ruining things that you may actually care about . . . Why would you want that in your life??" she wrote.

According to records, Dupre changed her name from Youmans to Ashley Rae Maike DiPietro, taking her stepfather's surname.

Since she moved to New York in 2004, she adopted the name Ashley Alexandra Dupre as a nom-de-stage for a music career.

On her MySpace page she has posted a single song, called "What We Want" - an amateurish R&B number about love in which she asks, "Can you handle me, boy?"

"I know what you want, you got what I want," she sings in the chorus. "I know what you need. Can you handle me?"

It remains a Jerry Springer world out there, sadly. A disgraced Governor and a nobody hooker. The Governor loses and the skank gets famous, and probably a record contract, because she "likes to sing". She may very well be rewarded for breaking the law. The sad part is, is that she, and I do not hesitate to say it, is glorified in the media now, whether they admit to doing so or not. Both the skank and the John, both belong in jail, like any other less affluent streetwalkers and johns. Children will hear this and become desensitized to the whole concept of prostitution, and the media just runs with it, plasters the skanks photo all over the place, and makes a circus out of it. The Democratic governor may get a pass because he said the he "was sorry", and, well, he's a Democrat! Her pass will come in the form of sympathy for her "troubled" past. Or that she is a woman who is struggling in a male dominated world, and did what she had to do. (NOW's position)

Thanks to the concept of "free love" from the 60's and Liberalism of today, the stigma of hooking, no longer applies in the US. Prostitution is not new by any means. What is new, is the tolerance of it by the mainstream. Lord, we need your shining Grace on us more than ever.