Is Universal Records the next stop on Elliot Spitzer’s pay-for-play crusade? Ever since the New York attorney general’s landmark $10 million settlement with Sony BMG forced the world’s second-biggest music company to overhaul its business practices and fire Joel Klaiman, Epic’s executive VP of promotions, news reports have fingered Universal as another possible target of Spitzer’s probe. Now, music industry insiders say, a bright-red payola bullseye has alighted on the back of one of the music giant’s top-tier execs: Valerie DeLong, Universal Records’ senior VP for promotions.

One reason DeLong’s name has emerged as a likely Spitzer target is a recent lawsuit filed against Universal by two independent promotion firms, National Music Marketing and Majestic Productions. The suit alleges that two Universal promotions execs, Chuck Field and Gary Marella, pressured the companies into participating in a payola scheme in which they would ply radio stations with lucrative promotional deals, ostensibly in exchange for “first access to [the stations’] playlist data”—but really to ensure air time for their artists’ songs.

To make matters worse, the suit alleges, the Universal execs demanded that the companies file false invoices that would charge small-time artists’ promotion fees to the promotional budgets of deeper-pocketed Grammy-winners like Nelly, who would never notice the expenditures. According to a source close to the suit, both men were taking orders directly from DeLong in the alleged payola scam. “She knew exactly what was going down,” the source says. “I’ve been told that Delong may be added as a defendant in an amended complaint.”

Universal spokesman Peter Lofrumento confirmed that DeLong was Field and Marella’s immediate superior, but declined to comment further on pending litigation. But DeLong’s Lawyer, Eric Greenspan, said, “Val has not been mentioned in the lawsuit, nor has she been named. There is no allegation that she did anything wrong, ever.”

As for whether his client will be singled out in Spitzer’s payola probe, Greenspan said, “Universal is the biggest record company in the business, how do you not want to talk to these people? It doesn’t make any sense not to.” The attorney general’s spokesman, Brad Maione, would only say, “The investigation is ongoing, and I just hope that everybody will stay tuned.”

Cue the music: “Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do....”