FORMER Gov. Eliot Spitzer, forced to resign when his trysts with a high-priced hooker were exposed, had repeatedly protested that his State Police bodyguards were watching him too closely, a former top aide recalled.'I've stayed awake at night thinking about it,' former Spitzer Communications Director Darren Dopp told The Post, adding that he now believes the complaints may have been hints at the scandal to come. 'I've thought about it because it didn't seem right to me at the time,' Dopp said.
Dopp, a key figure in the Dirty Tricks Scandal who has only begun to discuss Spitzer in the last two weeks, said that days after taking office on Jan. 1, 2007, the governor started complaining that his State Police security detail was too involved in his day-to-day - not to mention his nighttime - activities.
'Early on, Eliot was saying, 'I don't like these guys tagging after me. They pick up my bags. They're everywhere.'
'He was regularly complaining, to me and to others, that the security detail was being oppressive,' Dopp continued. 'I was very confused by what he was saying. I said, 'Boss, you sound like Mario [Cuomo] 12 years earlier,' ' said Dopp, who also worked for Gov. Cuomo, known for ditching his security detail so he could mix with the public.
'Eliot was overreacting to the security detail when we started the administration. He kept complaining about the security detail being oppressive,' Dopp said.