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$pread Magazine - Issue 3.3
In Her Own Words: An Interview with Deborah Jeane Palfrey
By Radical Vixen
I first heard of the DC Madam case in March. Her client list tantalized. Which hypocritical politicians would be exposed? Which moral majority leaders would be shown to love the very "sins" they preached against? I'll admit that when the phone records became freely available I got myself a copy. Am I searching them? Yes, but I haven't found anything.
I've been disappointed with how the mainstream media portrayed Deborah Jeane Palfrey and, to an extent, the adult industry. I wanted to see coverage treating sex workers as just that- workers. I wanted to hear discussions of how politicians impose anti-sex politics on the world, yet are clients themselves. I wanted to read articles about how the government seizes people's homes and savings before even trying them in court.
So I asked Ms. Palfrey for an interview. To my utter delight, she granted my request. The full interview was one hour long, so what follows is only a portion of our whole conversation. To read the full transcript or listen to the mp3 audio file, visit my blog.
Radical Vixen: How do you feel being called the DC Madam? In a way, it's judging you before your day in court.
Jeane Palfrey: I've been called worse at this point, and I'll be called worse before this is all over. I can assure you that's not too hard to imagine in my situation. "DC" - well it's true it was a DC based business. "Madam" - even though I contend the business was based upon legal sexual behavior, I guess the word "madam" would be applicable here. I certainly don't think the word "pimp" is applicable. It certainly refers to a man and it also refers to a predatory individual; I am neither. In a way I don't mind it, in another way I can see how some people consider the moniker to be rather unkind.
I've been wondering about your old employees. What's your relationship to them now?
Well, first of all, every time my attorney hears someone use the word "employee" he gets very nervous. It's all subcontractors, so I have to differentiate.
I have no relationship because none of them have contacted me and I have not contacted them. I have no idea who my accusers are. I can assume some - if not all of them - are my accusers. But at this point in time, no one has come forward to identify themselves as one of the witnesses for the government. This has been ongoing, [it] started on October 4 of last year and I have not had one gal, except for a person who worked for me back in the mid 90s, come forward and say, "I'd like to help you..." She's come forward and she's spoken on my behalf. But she's done so in shadow. The other ones, nobody wants to come forward and of course none of the clients want to either.
It sounds like everyone has run into the shadows.
Boy, I'll use another metaphor. Rats jumping from a ship. Every last one of them has jumped.
After the [July] press conference from Senator Vitter (R-LA), I'm curious, of all the scandals that have come out of the phone records, has any one incident surprised you more than the others?
No. I think there's a script for some of these folks. I mean they kind of go into hiding for a few days, they pull themselves together, then they come out either with their wife at their side, carrying on about how strong their marriage is, or they go off into rehab somewhere. And you don't really see or hear from then for another month or two until everything dies down.
[The reaction has] been anything from "I've sinned," as David Vitter said, to Harlan Ullman who said, "The accusation is beneath the dignity of a comment," to Randall Tobias who said, "Hey, nothing happened, I just had a couple of gals come over for a massage." So none of these reactions have surprised me.
Vitter supports abstinence-only education, he's against gay marriage, he's very, very anti-choice. As the bedrock of the moral conservative movement, he comes out [with] "I'm a sinner, please forgive me." Do you view it as ironic?
He's getting such a free pass, isn't he? Because he's an un-indicted co-conspirator in all of this, along with all the other 9,999 estimated clients who used my service. I'm being charged with [running a] racketeering enterprise, RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act], and conspiracy. So in essence, the man is getting a free pass, and I'm looking at 55 years in prison.
He gets to have a press conference and say, "I'm sorry," and then he gets to wash his hands of it.
He goes back to work.
Yeah. He goes back to work and maybe it comes up in his re-election campaign.
Well, I'm sure it comes up every night at home. He's not living a life of roses at the moment. But the bottom line is he's not a co-conspirator, he's not being indicted. He?'s not being put in a position where he?'s looking at incarceration. He didn't have his entire life savings, all his property, frozen and seized by the United States government. He's embarrassed; of course he's embarrassed. He's professionally shamed; his life at home is probably horrendous. However, he is not in the position I'm in right now. I've been professionally embarrassed, personally humiliated. I've had all of that, but I'm still looking at 55 years in a federal penitentiary, which in essence is the rest of my life.
I've heard you say the mainstream media is more interested in who you went to prom with than the story. If you were a man, do you think the case and the media coverage would be different?
It might be different, it might not be. The dividing line here isn't with sex and gender anymore, it's between real news (and real journalism) and entertainment. We have a culture that thrives 80, 90 percent of the time on entertainment and fluff, and really only looks at news and journalism and important issues maybe 10, 15, 20 percent of the time.
If only somebody, like ABC who has the real power and punch behind them to get a story like mine out there, would take it on. But they won't do that. They'll milk it for all it's worth with regards to sweeps week and ratings and then just stop.
Prostitution is not a federal crime, it's a state crime, by the way, it's a misdemeanor state crime in the lower courts in the states. They have literally federalized prostitution in my case in order to support [charges of] money laundering, conspiracy, and racketeering, which are the crimes, which can then [be used to] support civil asset forfeiture. They've come down on me like I was the Gambino crime family. I ran a little cottage business out of the laundry room of my home, my little Martha Stewart home in the San Francisco bay area for 13 years, harmed no one, had no arrests, no problems, but yet they've come down on me. My situation is very, very disturbing on a lot of levels and in a lot of ways.
You know I was under observation as far back as March 2004. And until the trigger was pulled on me on October 2006, 31 months they observed me, a la J. Edgar Hoover. You and I both know being in this industry that a sting operation by the local vice squad can be put together in a few days. It doesn't take 31 months for a prostitution case. They were not watching me for prostitution related activities. They were watching me for some [other] reason, and the only reason I can logically conclude [is] this powder keg of information that I was holding onto for all these years.
I didn't realize the value of my phone records. Now when they came here into my house on October 4 and executed the search warrant I think they were looking for the traditional Heidi Fleiss black book and they didn't find it because I never had a traditional Heidi Fleiss black book. However, they walked by the now infamous 46 pounds of phone records numerous times. I don't think they ever connected the dots that every one of my phone calls to and from Washington were long distance, therefore they would be itemized and documented. And as a result the real black book was in the phone records.
With you being observed, my first thought is it costs money to pay people to observe you. All the money spent to do these things to you while our highways are falling apart, we're getting social programs cut?
Not really. Let me tell you why. You see, I'm it. I'm a special person here. There's never been a case like mine before. There is no other service in the DC area [that] has had this happen to them in the last 10 months, or the last 10 years for that matter. It's just me and me alone.
You know as well as I do that running a business like mine for 13 years is a bit of an anomaly. And in a place like Washington DC, in a Mayflower Madam-like setting, all of a sudden it takes on a whole different import than many of the other agencies.
When I closed the business rather unexpectedly [they got] a little nervous. I made a little wire transfer to Germany, I transferred $70,000 to Germany last September 28th [and] the next day [the investigation] went into warp mode. On October 3, a couple of postal inspectors flew out from DC. They were trying to gain access to my property posing as a couple being transferred from Washington to the Bay area. My real estate agent had to inform them that I was not in the area. If anyone wanted to see the property I wanted to be present.
It's at this point in time from what I gather that they went up to Sacramento and got a search warrant based on information that was three to five years old. Now for the average person that doesn't mean a lot. But very rarely is a search warrant ever executed - in this country, in any case - on information that is older than six months.
I find that pretty disturbing.
That's very disturbing. [The warrant] was written in [the] third person by one of the postal inspectors about generic people, times, and places from three to five years ago (which is now four to six years ago). And somehow they got [it]. They pulled the trigger the next morning, they executed it, [and] they got into the property here. I think they came on a fishing expedition and they found absolutely nothing. I think it [was] at this point that they had to carry on like this was a regular prostitution case. I don't think they could even explain. They'll never admit why they were really watching me all this time. It's very scary, isn't it?
It is, [especially] the civil assets forfeiture. It seems like a lot of people don't know about it because it doesn't affect most Americans.
[Civil assets forfeiture] actually affects about two million Americans each year in one matter, shape, or form. It's becoming a more egregious act [by] the police as every day goes by. If you are caught in any sort of situation where you've committed a felony and it's attached to property - for example let's say you have an 18-year-old son who's living in the basement and is growing a little pot in a little flower bed - if the police can prove that you knew your child was growing a couple of pot plants in the basement, they can take your property from you. Most people think that civil assets forfeiture only happens in drug related cases [and that] it's only after the person has been convicted that they can take the property. Oh no, they take it right up front. They froze all of my assets on October 4 of last year. They stripped me bare.
It's such a scary thing that they took all that from you and you haven't even been found guilty or not guilty.
No I haven't. And I don't intend to be found guilty. I expect this case, despite the nay-sayers, to fall apart fairly quickly. We have tremendous legal arguments on the table.
You were saying earlier there hasn't been a case like yours before. After yours is all said and done do you think this situation will set some sort of precedent?
Oh God, I hope so. As a matter of fact one of the motions we have before the court right now - one of the nine motions we have - is called a privacy motion. It's building upon the Lawrence vs. Texas case of a few years back, the homosexual rights case in Texas. The argument in that case was that two consenting adults have the right to do as they see fit in the privacy of their home or domicile, that it is none of the government's business, and that government intrusion is completely off limits. What we're doing is adding the element of money to it and saying what two people do in the privacy of a domicile is entirely their business and none of the government's concern even if there is the exchange of money. If that flies, I'm praying to God this wonderful woman, Judge Kessler, rules in my favor on this one.
Wow, that could have far reaching effects.
It would have tremendously far reaching effects. And this case could indeed be the one and she could be the judge to do it because she's a Clinton appointee, she's about to retire, she's a woman, she seems to be a bit of a feminist, she seems to be a protege of Ruth Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Conner. She comes from Harvard Grad, back in the 50s, 60s, went to law school. This is a woman who came up the hard way. If there ever was a judge to do it and if there were ever a case to do it, it couldn't get much better than my situation at the moment.
If there was a ruling to make prostitution legal, it seems like it would have to be a by-product of a case like this, because what senator is going to try to pass a bill?
Oh, no senator is going to try to pass a bill. Nor did any senator try to pass abortion years and years ago in the 70s.
Yeah, it took Roe vs. Wade.
Nor has anybody come to the plate to say that homosexuality is okay from a legislative standpoint. This has all been done through the courts and through the interpretation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and so on and so forth. It is our right for the government not to intrude in our bedrooms. I believe I have a good chance in other areas for this case to fall apart, but for the sake of everyone else [I hope] that this one goes through.
Absolutely. That would be wonderful.
I'm not playing the game the way they want me to play it. They want me to sit back and to be the dutiful little defendant and take my beating and go off to prison. And that's not the way it's going to be. I'm going to fight them in the gutter if I have to with everything at my disposal. I will push and I will push and I will push until finally [in] this ridiculous case there is an infusion of sanity and it's over.
That's the impression I got. They really expected you to plea, hang your head down, and go away.
Some of the attorneys that I have had and that are no longer in my life or will not be soon have said things to me like, "Jeane, don't you just go to prison for 8 months? You'll be out in 8 months. It's going to take at least 8 months to fight it. I thought this person was the biggest buffoon- and he's an attorney. Only a buffoon would say [to] give up your liberty for 8 months. I wouldn't give up my liberty for 8 minutes. I've had people say, "Don't say anything, don't give any press conferences, don't speak up, just be quiet, don't aggravate the situation." Don't aggravate the situation? You've got to be kidding me. These people can come after me, destroy me, take every shot they possibly can at me, and I'm supposed to just sit back and be quiet and dutiful and well mannered?
That's why I'm doing this interview with you. These people who are telling me, "Just take it," these people scare me to death. I just don't understand them.
That kind of attitude leads to a police state I think.
That's where we're pretty much at right now. We're not too far away. You know the wire transfer, the one that triggered all this last September/October? It was picked up on one of those terror watch lists where they're supposed to be watching terrorists and not the American people. When I wired $70,000 dollars to Germany to buy my little retirement flat over there, it was picked up on one of those terrorist-tracking programs.
That's what's so frustrating about the mainstream coverage of your story. The list is tantalizing and interesting: What hypocritical senator is going to be outed next? But that's just the surface of the story. The real meat of the issue is far, far beneath that.
I absolutely whole-heartedly agree. It takes awhile to answer questions and to get this story out. For people to sit back and go, "Oh my God, this has nothing to do with Senator Vitter." If anything, you may want to even argue that Senator Vitter is a bit of a victim in all of this. Because he may have been one of the people that they, whoever they are, wanted to out eventually, or maybe even wanted to protect, and in that case he wouldn't have been a victim. But by the records coming out in the manner that they did, he has become a victim in all of this.
If the government had just not pulled the trigger on October 4 and executed that search warrant or had I been home to entertain Joe and Maria, and give them a tour of the house, to explain to them why I'm selling the house, to let them feel me out and go on their little fishing expedition, I think at that point they might have just gone back to Washington, DC.
In a way it's a sad commentary on our society that they assume you're up to no good, that you're doing something sinister, and really all you were doing was retiring.
Well that's right. What might be the biggest irony in all of this when it's all over is that those 46 pounds of phone records were considered of no value to me until the time I was criminally indicted.
When my attorney Mr. Montgomery Sibley, said to me, "Jeane, you need good criminal counsel. The only way I can possibly think that you can ever get the two, three, four hundred thousand dollars you need to get a good criminal attorney would be to sell those phone records." And at the time I said, "They are worth something, let's sell them."
Well we pulled off [of] that idea because we didn't know who the ultimate buyer was. We didn't know what intelligence agency around the world would be the ultimate buyer and how many layers of attorneys we would go through or they would go through to get it to the ultimate buyer so to speak. So we backed off that idea within a week or so. Then after that we decided we still need those records to be investigated. That's when ABC came along and said, look, we won't pay you for the records but we will investigate the records for you. We thought, this is great. They'll investigate the records for leads and exculpatory evidence and that kind of thing. We all know that ABC played me for ratings and nothing more.
Nonetheless in the process of all this it came to our attention that we should probably put those records out for the hypocrisy angle and for the possibility and susceptibility of blackmail. Because not only were there people who violated the public trust like David Vitter, hypocrites, but there are also people we believe and we were told by very reliable sources that individuals were most likely set up through the service and ultimately blackmailed. People who had security clearances and political connections and that kind of thing. And we thought, you know, what if we just out everybody? We're going to free those people and nobody's going to be in a position where they can be blackmailed anymore.
We figured the way people came to us and said, look it's your public duty to put those records out there on the open market, so to speak, so that [the] public can thoroughly investigate those records. And that's indeed what we did. So in the final analysis it was more for patriotic or altruistic reasons. I still don't want - and it doesn't appear as if it's happening - a lot of innocent people being slaughtered by the wayside here. It appears that only a few people are being outed and it seems to be being done in a reasonable fashion. Because it takes a lot of time and a lot of work to go through those records and the only people who are willing to go through those records in a responsible manner are usually responsible, conscientious bloggers or journalists or what have you. So I see the outing of people to be anywhere from a few dozen ultimately to a hundred or so, many of whom will not be well known names but there will be quite a few people outed along the way.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
I think what is disturbing about this situation is that this appears to have started as an observation of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, her life, her assets, her finances, her day to day dealings for business, etc. This never appeared to have been an investigation into prostitution related activities as much as it appears to have been some sort of observation of Deborah Jeane Palfrey's life. Which is very scary, which makes you kind of wonder what were they watching me for? Because you know what, I'm just an average, ordinary person. I think that's what I'd like to leave with your audience: that there is something very disturbing at the core of this case, that someone like me was being used for probably political purposes.
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