Gawker
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the "DC Madam" who was convicted in April of charges related to her famous prostitution ring, died today in an apparent suicide at her mother's house in Florida. She was 52. Palfrey was busted in October of 2006, and it wasn't long before she captured national attention by threatening to release her phone records—records that could've destroyed the careers of hundreds of Washington politicians and officials. Or so went speculation at the time.
Palfrey, a former receptionist, cocktail waitress, and probable escort herself, began her escort service under the name "Pamela Martin & Associates" in 1993. By 2006 her girls charged $300-per-hour and allegedly counted as clients thousands of important Washington figures.
She was finally busted in 2006 (by the Post Office!), whereupon she began her second career as an inescapable media figure (in DC, at least). She made headlines by threatening to sell her client list to pay for her attorneys—attorneys she kept firing, until finally deciding to defend herself. The presiding judge eventually convinced her to take a court-appointed lawyer as the case went to court this February.
Meanwhile, Palfrey continued insisting she'd done nothing illegal. She was merely offering an "erotic fantasy service." The first high-profile johns Palfrey outed—Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias and some think-tank nut—admitted no wrong-doing. Tobias did eventually resign.
And finally she released what is probably the biggest name on her list—Senator David Vitter. Vitter, who's even been linked to other whores, did not resign.
She didn't sell the list. She did hand it over to ABC, but they apparently found nothing on it newsworthy enough to share.
As her trial for money laundering and racketeering drew closer, Palfrey found herself settling into a comfortable role as a media talking head—DC's own unrepentant Heidi Fleiss, happy to opine on the whoring of great men in case tomorrow's column was looking a little dry.
Faced with the convictions on all charges, though, and possible jail time, well—who the hell knows what was really going on. You never do.
Now we await the conspiracy theorists who'll swear she was killed by the government before she could reveal that Dick Cheney was a client, or something.
Comments
Dick Cheney? A client? Really? she started operations in 1993 not 1903. yeah, he's old.
I would just like to point out that I'm from the area she was found in...which is adjacent to Clearwater...which is where the Scientologists are...
Shenanigans!
Suicide, huh? Nice and tidy for the GOP.
I really hope she was murdered, because suicide isn't funny at all.
@JinxyMcDeath: I'd off myself if I was in Tarpon Springs, too.
@Bell County:
She lived like a murder
But she died
Just like suicide
@JinxyMcDeath: Well, I'm from the area where she grew up. And, thusly, I shall pour out a 40 of Iron City in her memory.
threaten to leak damning information against powerful people ... and then end up dead? what a surprise.
@AndIAmTellingYou:
Yeah, it does sound a little suspicious.
Hey ABC - go ahead, publish that list; we'll decide whether it's got any newsworthy names!
@AndIAmTellingYou: 3 gun shots to the back of the head suicide no doubt
and her fingerprints sliced off
Back, and to the left. I hope Spitzer's got an airtight alibi!
@fiveinchtaint: House of the Rising Black Hole Sun.
Hillary's not even nominated yet and the mysterious killings begin...
thousands of important Washington figures is a huge lie-a misoverestimation if you will
"Yeah, boys. The clam's finally closed for good. Pack up yer stuff!"
I don't see anything suspicious about this whatsoever.
@BalknChain: Thousands is a huge lie, but the side suey is revealed and incontrovertible truth?
Maybe if Rob Lowe and his wife had wagged their genitals in her face, she would have lived.
@Priam: that might have killed her
I have heard that suicide by means of paid assasin is one of the more painless ways to go.
@donmiguel: I'm afraid you lost me at side suey
Probably shot herself in the back of the head ... three times.
And any of the rest of the indiscreet escorts have now been warned to stay out of small planes and away from sheds or the corners of desks, too...
God, I hope her suicide note names Bill Clinton as a client. (Not that Bill has ever had to pay for it, as far as we know.)
@DonPardoCalrissian: Wow!
@meerkat: ABC needs to get that list up, pronto...
Hmm . . . The AP says that Deborah Palfrey employed one Brandy Britton, a former college professor whose financial dire straits led her into a career in prostitution, which abruptly ended with her arrest. Brandy's client list also included men in high power positions in the D.C. area. Guess what? She offed herself just before going to trial, too. Coinkidink???
[www.comcast.net]
(sob)
If only the Pampers sponsorship had come through in time. Or if Two and a Half Men were filmed in DC.
@SuperBien: Probably not.
Dark.
Madame Suicide. Don't do it.
A smack to whatever strategist advised her to merely threaten to release her list. With no protection arranged in advance?
Where is Karl Rove when you need him?
I had no problems sharing my air with her. In Pacem Resquiat
@SuperBien: Hideous. All of it.
Is the movie title for this drama going to be "Hustle and Aunt Flow"?
@SuperBien: I know I have read a pretty good mystery/"police procedural" with a plot line very much like this one... Poor woman. Either way it's a bad end.
@scroll_lock: We're through the looking glass here, people! Black is white and white is... ah nevermind. She probably did off herself.
that she is gone is something Democrats and Republicans in Dc probably agree to be happy about it.... suspiciously happy I should say
That is so stupid. One more week--ten days, tops--and we would have forgotten all about that prostitution ring. Could've been business as usual. Hookers can be so short-sighted sometimes...
@Priam:
or "Uh-OH Another Dead Ho".
@Dusty in the Wind: @It'stheRooo: @LoveHandles: This really is overwhelmingly sordid and dark, innit? Brandy Britton killed herself via noose -- just like Deborah Palfrey . . . [www.google.com]
@SuperBien: Coinkidink??? i'd say non
ABC couldn't name the people on her list because it was too much for them and they didn't want the heat.
The powerful people on her list arranged this suicide.
You people are nuts. She'd been publicly threatening to kill herself for a while, especially when jailtime became a real possibility. Of course, to the conspiracy theorist, evidence which refutes the conspiracy only serves to reinforce the notion that it must exist.
You also give far too much credit to the competence of B-list washington politicians and bureaucrats by floating the notion that they could pull something like this off sucessfully. If anyone was even capable of having a whore whacked out of self interest, it would have been Spitzer, and of course he didn't. So why bother here?
@winniemc: I think she was fixing to do time in the next couple months. I don't think it was public opinion that was bothering her, I think it was anticipating the hoosegow.
@Buzz Killington: I thought she vowed never to kill herself, claiming to be made of different stuff than Brandy Britton.
@Buzz Killington: Whatevs. I can't wait for the "Law + Order" writers to get a hold of this . . . They could tie in Spitzer-gate with this shenanigans to come up with a really memorable episode.
Secretary -> cocktail waitress -> escort -> madam
now THAT'S a corporate ladder!
@SuperBien: Oh yeah, the Law & Order episode is going to be classic. It'll turn out to be the governors social-climbing wife who set up the hit or something though.
Start a discussion:
Login with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?