NEW YORK GOVERNOR DAVID PATERSON ADMITS TO MULTIPLE EXTRA-MARITAL AFFAIRS

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A day after his predecessor's sex scandal propelled him into office, Gov. David Paterson revealed Tuesday that he had affairs with a "number of women," including a state employee, but said that does not affect his ability to lead.

Paterson had admitted one affair in a newspaper interview hours after taking office Monday, but gave a fuller accounting at a news conference with his wife at his side.

"Several years ago, there were a number of women," Paterson said. "The public wants to know who its elected officials are and sometimes, even though you are human, and you are someone who just has feelings and has faults, there comes a time, perhaps, when you have to tell the public."

Paterson said that the affairs happened during a rough patch in his marriage, and that the employee did not work for him. He insisted that he did not advance her career, and that no campaign or state money was spent on the affairs.

The admissions dampened the mood in the Capitol, where legislators had chanted Paterson's name and cheered after he was sworn in Monday. But there were many significant differences between Paterson's infidelity and the scandal that took down former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Spitzer, like Paterson a Democrat, has been accused of spending tens of thousands of dollars on high-priced call girls, including one last month. Federal prosecutors are deciding whether to pursue charges against Spitzer, who went after prostitution rings when he served as attorney general.

"I do not feel I have broken my commitment to the citizens of New York state," Paterson said.

Paterson, a Harlem Democrat, talked about one affair in an interview with the New York Daily News after he was sworn in Monday, but his comments Tuesday were the first showing that the couple's fidelity problems went deeper than he first acknowledged.