Madam’s papers, no names, for news show

Published 9:00 pm Friday, May 4, 2007

WASHINGTON – A woman accused of running a Washington, D.C.-area prostitution ring detailed her business in a TV interview Friday night, but identified no new high-profile clients.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey supplied the ABC newsmagazine “20/20” with 46 pounds of phone records from her escort service, Pamela Martin and Associates, in hopes that its investigation would ferret out clients who would testify that they did not have sex with the women Palfrey employed.

Some of the phone records could be tracked to prominent business executives, NASA officials, at least five military officers and exclusive neighborhood mansions, according to the ABC report. But there were no members of Congress or White House officials traced through Palfrey’s records, the network reported.

Palfrey, 51, of Vallejo, Calif., is charged in federal court with racketeering and money laundering associated with prostitution. She said she ran the business, Pamela Martin and Associates, from her laundry room, and that the women who worked for her signed contracts in which they promised not to have sex with clients.

“These were not cheap women. These were very nice women who just needed to make a few extra dollars,” Palfrey said.

Palfrey did identify one of her escorts, a former university professor who committed suicide after being charged with prostitution.

Palfrey maintained the business was legitimate.

“I was selling fantasy sex,” Palfrey said.

The most prominent client of Palfrey’s business was senior State Department official Randall Tobias, who resigned from his post last week after ABC confronted him about his use of the service. He previously directed international AIDS relief programs for the Bush administration that promote abstinence and require grant recipients to sign a pledge opposing prostitution.

Tobias has said he obtained massages but denied having sex with the escorts.