D.C. Madam Wants Washington Clients to Testify
April 30, 2007 9:36 AM
The woman charged in a federal indictment with running a high-class Washington, D.C. call girl service says she plans to call her prominent clients to testify at her trial.
Jeane Palfrey, dubbed the D.C. Madam, says among those she will call to testify are Randall Tobias, who resigned Friday as deputy secretary of state after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of Palfrey's escort service.
Tobias said he "had some gals come over to the condo for a massage" but denied any sex was involved.
Tobias is the second prominent man to be identified as a customer of the Palfrey's "sexual fantasy service." Two weeks ago, Palfrey alleged that military strategist Harlan K. Ullman, creator of the "shock and awe" combat theory and now a scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was also a customer. Ullman has said that the claim was "beneath the dignity of comment."
Also on Palfrey's list of customers who could be potential witnesses are a Bush administration economist, the head of a conservative think tank, a prominent CEO, several lobbyists and a handful of military officials.
"I'm sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, four to eight years, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever," Palfrey told ABC News correspondent Brian Ross in an interview to be broadcast Friday on "20/20." "I'll bring in every last one of them in if necessary," she said.
Palfrey is due in federal court Monday morning to ask the judge to replace her current lawyer, a public defender, with a lawyer who she says "will be more aggressive in fighting the government."
The indictment of Palfrey alleges she used more than 100 women over a period of 13 years "for the purpose of engaging in prostitution activity with male clients, including sexual intercourse and oral sex in exchange for money." She made more than $2 million running the operation, known as Pamela Martin and Associates, according to the federal indictment.
Palfrey, who ran the service by phone from her home in Sonoma County, Calif., is the only person charged. None of her male customers is named by the government.
"That's very hypocritical," she says. "Why aren't these people under arrest? Why just me?"
Palfrey claims she ran a legal operation that offered sexual fantasy but not "illegal sex" of the kind described in the indictment.
She says she hopes her prominent clients will testify they did not engage in actual sex when they hired her escorts.
"This was a sexual fantasy service," Palfrey told "20/20." "Occasionally a client would want to go to the Kennedy Center or go to dinner, but generally speaking they went straight to the homes, or they went straight to the hotels," she said.
Palfrey provided ABC News with phone records from her business going back four years.
Vote: Do you think the clients of the D.C. Madam should resign?
April 30, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (63)
1 comment:
Good stuff. Thanks.
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