A 25-year-old Russian woman who has had various legal entanglements with Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor, appeared in Criminal Court in Manhattan on Tuesday, accused of committing grand larceny and forgery as part of an extortion scheme involving two men.

The woman, Svetlana Travis Zakharova, occasionally wept as a prosecutor described her as engaging in “a systematic and protracted extortion scheme” with one man, referred to as Complainant 1, that lasted over two years.

Neither man was identified, but the accusations by the government relating to Complainant 1 appear to mirror others made in a lawsuit filed by Mr. Spitzer, who resigned as governor in 2008 after it emerged that he had patronized a prostitute.

Mr. Spitzer’s lawyer, Adam S. Kaufmann, said on Tuesday that prosecutors had informed him of the arrest, and added that his client was cooperating with the investigation.