Washington lobbyist Craig Spence, a flamboyant figure in a Washington male prostitution scandal, was found dead Friday in a barricaded room at the posh Ritz-Carlton Hotel, police said Saturday.
Spence, 49, was found dead, lying in bed in a black tuxedo after police and firefighters sawed through the barricaded door to Room 429 of the Ritz-Carlton shortly before 4 p.m. Friday, officials said.Paramedics pronounced Spence dead at the scene and his body was removed to a local morgue, a police spokeswoman said. No cause of death was given, but The Boston Herald quoted police sources as saying a note was found with the body.
"The fire department had to saw the door in half in order for police and the EMT's to get into the room. The door was barricaded by the bed, with a chair also jammed between the bed and the bathroom door," the spokeswoman said.
Spence checked into the hotel Nov. 4 and was scheduled to depart Friday, Ritz-Carlton public relations director Patricia Cutler said.
Police were summoned shortly after 3:30 p.m. Friday when the housekeeping staff was unable to get into the room, she said.
Spence graduated from Boston University in 1963 and got his political start on Beacon Hill in Boston as an aide to former House Speaker John F.X. Davoren in the 1960s.
Spence, who later became a lobbyist and president of Craig Spence Associates, turned up on the front pages of newspapers this past summer when he was identified as a major client of a homosexual escort service.
The service, Professional Services Inc., is being investigated for possible credit card fraud.
Spence was under investigation by federal authorities in Washington in connection with the service, which reportedly was patronized by government officials, military officers, congressional aides and U.S. and foreign businessmen.
In June, The Washington Times reported that Spence arranged, with the help of a Secret Service officer, to conduct a private White House tour for two call boys one night in the summer of 1988. He reportedly gave the Secret Service officer a Rolex watch in exchange for his troubles.
Police in New York City arrested Spence on drug and weapons charges on July 31 after they found a small amount of cocaine and a .32 caliber pistol in his room at the Barbizon Plaza Hotel in midtown Manhattan.
Spence had a reputation as a man about town in Washington, reportedly hosting parties for many prominent people.
"Spence's friends say he often boasted of being a CIA agent, of associating with high-ranking government officials, of bugging his friends and associates, and of blackmailing people," the Washington Post reported earlier this year.