Thursday, July 5, 2007

D.C. Madam Materials Portend Mid-Summer Mayhem

When the summer news drought strikes in a few weeks, expect some juicy details to fill the airwaves courtesy of the D.C. Madam and a friendly federal judge. As posted on the Smoking Gun, Judge Gladys Kessler of the D.C. District court issued a ruling which gives the OK for Debbie Palfrey (the "D.C. Madam") to freely distribute the phone records of her long-running escort service. The list is expected to contain the numbers of numerous upscale and politically-connected clientele (only hinted at by a fairly anemic report by ABC's Brian Ross last May-- see my previous post here). Judge Kessler officially vacated two previous orders that barred veteran pimp Palfrey from selling or distributing a decade's worth of phone records for Pamela Martin & Associates, the escort service Palfrey founded in 1993 and ran for 13 years.

In the ruling, Kessler rejected various prosecution arguments, including the claim that potential witnesses could be harassed if the phone logs were disseminated. According to the order, the phone records are Palfrey's own property and not the subject of a government forfeiture action-- and as such, the court would not take the "extraordinary step of freezing the personal property of an individual, not yet convicted of any crime, and barring her from giving away that property."

Let the name dropping begin-- and please don't make us wait too long!

No comments: