May 1, 2008
Breaking: D.C. Madam Found Dead in Florida
The local Tampa Bay FOX affiliate, FOX13, is reporting that Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known in the media as the D.C. Madam who was last month convicted of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering, has been found dead in Tarpon Springs, FL, of an apparent suicide.
Police were called to the scene of Palfrey's mother's home, and have confirmed that a body found there was Palfrey. She was 52.
Palfrey was set to be sentenced on July 24. After her conviction on April 15, Palfrey's attorney, Preston Burton, told the Washington Post that his client was "holding up fine" and staying with her mother.
Palfrey ran her call girl firm, Pamela Martin & Associates, from her California home. It's been estimated she employed at least 132 D.C.-area women over the years she ran the business. After she was charged by federal authorities, Palfrey released her phone lists to ABC News in the hopes of exposing high-level government officials who she claimed used her services. The most prominent names that arose from the list were deputy secretary of state Randall Tobias, who resigned, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who apologized to his constituents but did not resign, and Harlan Ullman, a think tank military strategist.
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i could understand this reaction if she were a male and going to the men's lock-up, but is women's prison as bad? you know, with the anal raping, salad tossing and random shivvings?
Her trial resulted in several of her former employees having to reveal their past. It destroyed their lives, careers and reputation. All for what? The idiotic argument that Palfrey had no idea what her call girls were doing to earn money? Please. Palfrey destroyed people's lives by going forward with her trial. I really feel no sympathy that she's dead.
Well, crap, that's very sad. Wasn't there another person busted in a high-profile escort case (in Baltimore or something) who ended up committing suicide last year? She was a PhD or something?
It must be terrible to feel you have reached the end of your rope like that.
first - girls don't escort men for free, they just don't. if you believe that though, i do have a bridge to sell you.
second - props to dcist for creating a much better story than the few lines from ap running on cnn and nytimes right now.
This sucks. The prosecutors have her blood on their hands for this, and they're the ones who just had to draw out everyone's past under threat because, goodness knows, this country tolerates violence but not sex.
Heckuva job, brown nosers!
R.I.P. Deborah Jeane
When I heard the news, it struck me as pretty sad, too. I mean, she's no Iris Chang, but she was a human being nonetheless, warts and all.
Meanwhile, David Vitter still has his life and his job, although he probably has to get his wife to humor his diaper fetish.
That's sad. She was just a working girl trying to make a buck in the oldest business around.
RIP D.P. She had spunk and she really stuck it to the man.
amen, bethesdaist. i'm hope this one tears at vitter for a good long time.
Wow. I sure didn't see that coming.
I was just thinking, "You know what the D.C. Madam story needs? Something to make it even sadder."
IMGoph - if nothing else, I wish Vitter the a case of necrotizing diaper rash. Man, the WashPost boards are all "she was murdered!" conspiracy theory already on this one. Tinfoil hats are the accessory for spring.
holy s**t. 'nuff said.
That's sad. She was just a working girl trying to make a buck in the oldest business around.
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thats false, agriculture is the oldest profession, then whoring..I guess this is one of the great benefits of ungodly tuition is the talent pool for the industry grows...
I strongly suspect that prostitution has been around longer than agriculture, although hunting and gathering are probably the very oldest professions.
can hunting and gathering count as a profession if it's the only way to stay alive?
they weren't working for the weekend, after all. they were just looking for some dinner.
For those of you who get trivia like this stuck in your head, Brandy Britton was the former U of M professor who committed suicide last year before her prostitution trial. I would feel pretty crappy if I was a DA prosecuting crap like this.
Committed suicide? I don't believe it.
I hate to admit it, but I'm with sixfive I don't believe it.
one word; travelgate!
wow. a "suicide" in crooked ass florida, of all places. color me skeptical.
I'm trying to think of a rule to be drawn from this story.
The only thing I can come up with is that prostitution appears to be the one crime that is better practiced at the blue collar level than the white collar level.
Generally, you can bet your bippy that some white collar Wall Street insider trader or corporate embezzler will get a much better deal at Club Fed than some three-strike loser who shoplifted a Snickers bar from a 7-11 with a screwdriver in his pocket. And the return on investment (i.e. jailtime) is a hell of a lot better of a prospect, to boot.
But not so with respect to wanton hookery. Run a massage parlor or stroll your ho's on 14th street and the penalty is chump change. Run a high class/ high tech operation with computers, cell phones, etc., make a boatload of money, and try to hide it from Uncle Sam, and well, they come after you in spades. Maybe launch a few political careers in the process.
After all, they didn't nail her for pandering. They got her on racketeering/RICO, money laundering/tax evasion, and illegal use of the mail--all federal sentences, which add up to big time very quickly. The same way they got Al Capone.
So, if there's a rule or moral here maybe it's any of the following:
a) pimping IS easy, it's running a high-end call girl outfit for lawyers and politicians that ain't;
b) pigs get fat, hogs get tried, convicted and kill themselves;
c) Don't play chicken with The Man-especially if The Man works inside the Beltway;
d) all of the above
can hunting and gathering count as a profession if it's the only way to stay alive?
they weren't working for the weekend, after all. they were just looking for some dinner.
I nominate Miss Bee for comment of the week.
I really feel no sympathy that she's dead.
Classy. How about for her mother, then? Who found her?
@sixfive: it seems there are suicide notes.
"i could understand this reaction if she were a male and going to the men's lock-up, but is women's prison as bad? you know, with the anal raping, salad tossing and random shivvings?" - rabo k
"Writers Dan Moldea, who interviewed Palfrey several times for a possible book about her experiences, said today that Palfrey told him three times that she would kill herself rather than return to prison. She had served an 18-month term in California in the early 1990s for running a prostitution service and told Moldea that it was "just a horrible, horrible period for her," the writer said.
"The first time she did time, it damn near killed her, she told me," Moldea said. "She wound up in a fairly tough prison, and the stress caused some sort of an illness, and it was a very debilitating illness that affected her eyesight."
Moldea said that, in three interviews last spring and summer, after she was indicted, Palfrey told him: "I'm not going back to jail. I'll kill myself first. I'll commit suicide before I go back to jail."
"Those were her exact words," he said."
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/05/dc_madam_believed_a_suicide_in.html
In other news, the ubiqitous Wayland Flowers puppet remains at large.
Prostitution is legal in Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Australia, and most other democracies worthy of the name.
"Land of the Free", my ass.
FWIW, Tarpon Springs is a very pretty town on the Gulf. Has a large Greek community b/c decades ago there was a thriving sponge - yes, sponge - industry. As in natural sponges, just off the coast. They'd sell them & shells at markets in town. Then synthetic sponges came along & the natural sponges also became "fished out." Now it's a tourist destination with great seafood restaurants, a modest retro sponge museum and a gorgeous Greek orthodox church. It's definitely worth a visit...
RIP, Madam.
@techne: I feel bad for Palfrey's mother. It is abslutely horrible that her 76-year old mother found her hanging in the shed. Which shows, yet again, the utter selfishness that was Palfrey. She destroyed people's careers and lives by arguing that her business was not a hooker ring, revealing names of her "famous" clients, and forcing her former call girls to testify and reveal their pasts. And she ends her life in a way that would cause maximum pain and suffering to her mother. Palfrey was a selfish, miserable person. I continue to feel no sympathy for her. But I do feel sympathy for those whose lives she ruined.
"I guess I'm made of something Brandy Britton wasn't made of" - Palfrey upon learning of the suicide of that woman busted in Howard County (Examiner)
aww shucks, flapjack. you make me blush
(and want some pancakes, too. what a combo)
(Let me first say that I know fuck-all about the madam story and I am not speaking to the selfishness she may have shown there. I have a different dog in this fight, as I said in today's morning roundup thread. A few years ago, a family member of mine committed a very dramatic suicide--indeed, one far, far more selfish than this. So I'm coming at this from a narrower POV and I ask you to give me that leeway as you read my opinion below. TIA.)
You're right, of course, she was unbelievably selfish. Not only are you right, it's the internet. You have the right to pass quick simple judgment and move on. Families/survivors don't have that luxury and feel a combination of love/sympathy (for their pain), grief, and anger towards the person. It's difficult enough to bear when one is not in the center of a media circus. (I've noticed that moms of suicides tend to hear things like "She was selfish" as "You raised a selfish kid.") I submit to you that "sympathy for the family" means sympathy for the complexity of their situation.
Again, it's a free internet, it's your right to post, Ma Palfrey's never gonna read this. I'm not trying to shut you up, I hope you see that. You didn't personally hurt or offend me, I don't want an apology or need a reply. All I wanna say is: The expression of your opinion breaks the Internet Golden Rule--you wouldn't say this to Mom's face. IMO that lacks class.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled urbanite/internetizen/yupster ironical snarkfest.
The apparent evidence implies that the woman was murdered. Women don't usually hang themselves.
Some suspect that she was murdered with something like a garrote, then hung in an attempt to cover up the damage to her neck. People who knew her describe her as a very strong and upbeat person, and she had served jail time for prostitution before. She adamantly went on record on saying that she had no intentions of committing suicide, rather, she was determined to expose some major figures in the US government. She had operated the service in the capital, and had a very large archive of phone numbers. Palfrey was the go-to-girl for many of the Eliot Spitzer types in DC. From the looks of it, Tobias, Vitter, and Ullman were used as fall-guys to quell the unravellings of the larger story. Former NSA analyst Wayne Madison has provided that in the past, these names also had included, at one point or another, Robert Ehrlich, Jack Abramoff, John Mccain, Rudy Giuliani, Vice President Dick Cheney, and others, plus certain other Bush administration officials, and high-profile foreign officials that had been "entertained" on the behalf of American politicians.
Some also suspect that the entire service may have been an ongoing blackmail op from within a faction of the government.
I think it's safe to say we can stop keep pretending our government doesn't ever pay for sex or kill people.
Check Geraldo's recent coverage, on Youtube. In a media that usually acts as the flag waving toady for the whitewashed American Dream, the man has some serious "testicular fortitude".