Pimping Ain't Easy: A Tycoon Whore-icane

It's been a while since I've written an article/post.  So, I thought I'd come in hot with a post about a very interesting woman!  Her name is Deborah Jeane Palfrey (March 18, 1956-May 1, 2008).  Ever heard of her?  I had not up until pretty recently.  She had the nickname, "DC Madam," and her business was called "Pamela Martin and Associates," an escort agency that provided "high dollar" escorts for elites in Washington DC.

I'll start from the beginning.  Palfrey graduated college from Rollins, an elite private school in Florida.  She obtained a degree in Criminal Justice and became a Paralegal.  In 1990, she was arrested for pimping, pandering and extortion.  She somehow escaped authorities but was later captured trying to cross US/Canada border.  In 1992, she spent 18 months in prison.  It was upon her release from prison that Palfrey established her business, "Pamela Martin and Associates."

In October 2006, two US Postal Inspection Service Agents posed as a couple who were very interested in buying her house which was on the market.  This was a clever way for them to get inside her home without having to obtain a warrant.  The agents froze $500,000 US dollars which was tied to money laundering and prostitution.

In 2007, one of Palfrey's prostitutes hanged herself.  Palfrey was quoted as saying (in response to the suicide of one of her "girls": "I guess I'm made of something that Brandi Britton wasn't made of."  There is still speculation exactly what Palfrey meant by that statement.

Palfrey was convicted on April 15, 2008 for racketeering, using the US mail for illegal purposes, and money laundering.

It's been suggested many US senators employed Palfrey's services, often times calling from hotel rooms to conceal their identity.  However, telephone records were subpoenaed for her trial.  Within the records there were between 10,000-15,000 phone numbers of clients who had secured escorts.  Additionally, it's important to know that several of these clients secured lawyers who contacted Palfrey to see if their names could be kept confidential.  It's also interesting to note Palfrey had cleared over $2 million in earnings from over 13 years of being a Madam in Washington, DC.  Her escorts charged $300 per hour.

Who came forward to provide information?  Thirteen escorts and three former clients testified at Palfrey's trial.  Senator David Vitter admitted to using Palfrey's escort services.  Two Washington officials were "ratted out" but never confessed: Randall Tobias (State Department Officer) and Harlan Ullman (Defense Department Official).

David Vitter

So how did they get people to testify at trial?  Prosecution offered immunity from future prosecution in exchange for testimonies.

What's so interesting about all this is how the media handled things.  You can research ABC's 20/20 from May 4, 2007 during their investigative report on Palfrey.  Turns out, ABC news was handed over 46 POUNDS (that's 21 kg in the metric system) of phone records.  Somehow it was decided that NONE of these were "newsworthy" for the general public.  Allow me to repeat that, the powers that be at ABC decided to never make mention of any of the names they were handed to protect the clients who secured prostitutes.  

Palfrey was facing anywhere from 6 years to up to 55 years in prison post conviction!

Palfrey was 52 years old when she committed suicide.  She was found hanging in a storage shed just outside her mother's trailer park 2 weeks after her prison sentence was vacated.  A lot of people speculate whether or not her death was really a suicide.  Handwritten suicide notes were found in which her sister identified the handwriting as Deborah's.  The two suicide notes were written a week before she was found.  The contents of the suicide letters were eventually released:

        To her sister: "You must comprehend there is no way out, i.e. "exit strategy" for me other than              the one I have chosen here."

        Another note described her vacated sentence as: "a modern day lynching" and she further                  explained that she had a phobia of being "in my late 50's a heartbroken, penniless and very                  much alone woman."

Again, obviously people were skeptical.  Dan Moldea, a journalist recalled a conversation he had with the Madam.  He recounted Palfrey had said: " I am not going back to prison!  I will commit suicide first!"  He also relayed that Palfrey had told him that her prior prison sentence had left her with PTSD.

However, Montgomery Blair Sibley, her former lawyer (law license suspended in 2008 in the State of Florida) claimed to have phone records tied to the Presidential election of 2016 (Obama v. McCain).

She is buried in Tarpon Springs, FL.  It took a little creativity to get past the "guards" at the cemetery who stopped us and questioned what our business was at her grave.  A lady explained that Palfrey's family entrusted them that her grave site would be safe.  Of course, with the notoriety, we understood completely.

The purpose of writing this blog post/article is to promote the questioning of which candidate Palfrey could have allegedly have been connected to (darn, I hate ending sentences with a preposition, so I'll add this parenthetical as to distract from that).  Also, the purpose is to make you question whether Palfrey committed suicide.  Can a person not commit suicide and still have handwritten letters in their own handwriting?