AND NOW, FOR A CHANGE OF PACE, A HETEROSEXUAL DC AFFAIR

LARA JAKES JORDAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS - Federal agents have seized more
than $427,000 in cash and stocks from a woman accused of running a
money-laundering scheme from her Washington-based prostitution business,
court records obtained Monday show. The woman, Deborah Jean Palfrey of
Vallejo, Calif., could not immediately be reached for comment by The
Associated Press. . . Palfrey's clients may have included wealthy
doctors and lawyers in Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs,
but no well-known names have so far surfaced, said a law enforcement
official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation
is ongoing. . . The women, all at least 22 years old, told investigators
that Palfrey urged them to work for her at least three nights each week
and charge their clients up to $300, according to the affidavit. . .

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=938282

SMOKING GUN - In a TSG interview, Palfrey admitted operating an escort
firm, but claimed that her workers did not engage in "illegal sexual
activities." There are "a lot of erotic activities that one can do
without participating in things that are illegal," she claimed.
Investigators contend that after Palfrey hires a prostitute, she sends
the woman to a "screening" appointment where she is required to have sex
"without payment" so as to ensure that the prospective hooker is not a
law enforcement officer. Palfrey, who spoke to TSG from Germany, said
that agents raiding her home would have found nothing since she did not
keep computerized records and regularly shredded documents. Asked about
the nature of her clientele, Palfrey called the identity of her johns a
"salacious detail" of which she was unaware. "I never kept records," she
claimed. "I protected the client's confidentiality. . . they trusted
me." But Palfrey did speculate that she may have come to the attention
of federal agents because her operation had somehow intersected with a
more high profile case, like that of convicted ex-congressman Randy
"Duke" Cunningham. Investigators are reportedly examining charges that a
defense contractor provided hookers to Cunningham as part of an
influence-peddling scheme. Palfrey did not claim a nexis between her
escort service and Cunningham, but invoked the disgraced pol's name
while saying that she would wager that the basis for the federal probe
of her business "had solely to do with some Duke Cunningham-type bigwig
client that got caught up in something and started to say, 'Do you know
this?' and 'Do you know that?' And that he might have been able to lead
them to somebody." Palfrey, who said she started her service in D.C.
because "it's a very liberal, sophisticated, cosmopolitan area,"
advertised her company as featuring women "23 and older, with two or
more years of college education, who either work and/or go to school in
the daytime." Palfrey told TSG that she shuttered her escort business in
mid-August because her female employees were "driving me crazy. They
were a pain in the ass to deal with." She added, "It was just time to
start a different life and do different things, move on."

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1009061hook1.html

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