'let he who is without sin cast the first stone'

The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state's new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs.

In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.

In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.

As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St.

He said members of his Albany legislative staff often used the same hotel when they visit the city.

"This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point," Paterson conceded in his first interview Saturday. "But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on."

In a second interview with Paterson and his wife Monday, only hours after he was sworn in to replace scandal-scarred Eliot Spitzer, Michelle Paterson confirmed her husband's account.

"Like most marriages, you go through certain difficult periods," Michelle Paterson said. "What's important is for your kids to see you worked them out."

The First Couple agreed to speak publicly about the difficulties in their marriage in response to a variety of rumors about Paterson's personal life that have been circulating in Albany and among the press corps in recent days.

They spoke in the governor's office even as scores of friends, family members and political supporters were celebrating in the corridors of the Capitol his ascension to the state's highest post.

Given the call-girl scandal that erupted last week and forced Spitzer's stunning resignation, Paterson conceded that top government officials are bound to come under closer scrutiny for their personal actions.

The governor flatly denied what he called a "sporadic rumor in Albany that I had a love child" by another woman. "That's just not true," he said.

"Don't you think he'd take care of a child if he'd had one?" Michelle Paterson said, in obvious disgust over that persistent rumor.

The romantic relationship he did have, Paterson said, lasted until sometime in 2001. He did not identify the former girlfriend.

Asked if he had stayed with anyone else since 2001 at the same West Side hotel, Paterson said, "From time to time I used to take Michelle to that hotel."

While Michelle Paterson did not speak much Monday, she touched on the subjects of marriage and infidelity in an interview last week with my colleague, Heidi Evans.

"I feel life is very fragile," she said. "You never know what could happen. That is why you shouldn't judge people.

When asked if she worried about "other women," given how much time she and her husband spend apart, she replied, "Not really. I have a philosophy in life: You have to let people live their life. I feel my husband loves me and is devoted to the family. And I know he loves me. I am not going to worry about that stuff."

He and his wife went to the West Side Days Inn when they were trying to rekindle the romance in their marriage, he said.

They did so after a marriage counselor he used recommended they introduce "new and exciting things" into their relationship, Paterson said, and so they could be alone and away from their children.

"It's convenient since it's only four subway stops from my Harlem office," Paterson said.

Asked if he had used government or campaign funds to pay for any rendezvous with his former girlfriend, Paterson said he had not.

All this, of course, would normally be considered part of the private life of any government official.

But after the sordid saga of Eliot Spitzer, and the ever-wackier escapades of former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey and his estranged wife, Dina, it seems no political leader can escape the magnifying glass that is destined to be placed over his personal life.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com