Alleged US madam apologises to outed state official
An accused Washington madam today said she was sorry a former top US State Department official had been outed as a client.
But she said it was necessary to help prove her escort service was operating within the law.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey – charged in federal court with running a prostitution ring through her escort service, Pamela Martin & Associates – said she expected to subpoena former Bush administration official Randall Tobias now that he had told ABC News he hired Palfrey’s escorts only for legal massage services and “no sex”.
Tobias resigned on Friday as head of the Bush administration’s foreign aid programmes after he was confronted by ABC about his use of Palfrey’s escorts.
Palfrey gave the network many of her phone records back in March, saying she hoped they could turn up high-profile clients who would testify that the escort services were legitimate.
“My hope that defence witnesses could be found by combing through the information indeed is being realised,” Palfrey said in a prepared statement outside the federal courthouse in Washington after a brief hearing.
Tobias is the second person to be publicly labelled as one of Palfrey’s customers.
In court papers, Palfrey listed Harlan Ullman, a military strategist who authored the combat strategy known as “shock and awe,” as a client. Ullman said the accusation was not worthy of a response.
On its website, ABC News reported that the list of Palfrey’s customers also included a Bush administration economist, a prominent chief executive officer, the head of a conservative think tank, lobbyists and military officials.
While Palfrey, 50, of Vallejo, California, said she gave her phone records to ABC News so the network could identify clients who could then testify on her behalf, prosecutors accused Palfrey of seeking to intimidate witnesses by outing them publicly.
Standing outside the federal courthouse and facing television cameras, Palfrey said “how genuinely sorry I am for Mr. Tobias, his family and his friends”.
Palfrey did not answer any questions, but her civil attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley said Palfrey had no choice but to enlist ABC because they needed a reputable organisation with the resources to comb through the voluminous phone records and match numbers to names.
Sibley said he did not know how many people will be outed by ABC, which is planning to air a report on Friday on its 20/20 newsmagazine.
Palfrey has described her business as a “legal, high-end erotic fantasy service”.
Prosecutors say Palfrey knew her escorts were having sex with clients and that Palfrey generated more than $2m in revenue over 13 years, with more than 130 women employed at various times to serve thousands of clients at $200-$300 a session.
