Scandal on Capitol Hill: Madam Julia and the little black book that terrifies Washington
She looks the picture of a demure businesswoman, with her dark hair, navy suit and horn-rimmed spectacles. But Deborah Palfrey's business involved sexual favours - and now she's ready to kiss and tell. Rupert Cornwell explains why
Published: 01 May 2007
In Washington they call it "Taking out the trash" time - the dead hours of late Friday afternoon when a government department dumps an embarrassing piece of news, hopeful it will be overlooked by the Saturday papers and otherwise lost and forgotten amid the pleasures of the weekend. And last Friday provided a classic of the genre.
At 5.30pm the surprise news came over the wires: Randall Tobias, 65, a deputy secretary of state in charge of US foreign aid programmes and a former chairman of the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company, had resigned "for personal reasons", effective immediately.
The ritual tributes flowed in. "A rich legacy on which he can look back with justifiable pride," declared Sean McCormack, spokesman for Condoleezza Rice.
A couple of hours later the sensational truth emerged. Mr Tobias, by all accounts a much-liked figure, had quit because his name was about to surface in a long-simmering scandal about a high-class prostitution business in Washington DC, run by a woman based in California, whose clients may have included some of the biggest names in town.
The affair of the "Washington madam" first became public knowledge earlier this year. Few details emerged - with one irresistibly titillating exception. The lady in question, who used the pseudonym "Miz Julia", had an exhaustive list of names and phone numbers of those who had sought her business.
Washington being Washington, when this other shoe would drop was merely a matter of time. Now it is about to, and the hapless Mr Tobias promises to be just the start of it.
In one of the more remarkable public appearances here in a long while, a middle-aged lady, demure in a navy-blue suit, long dark hair and large horn-rimmed glasses yesterday appeared on the steps of the venerable DC district courthouse to read a statement to reporters.
Her name is Deborah Jeane Palfrey. For 13 years according to court papers, she ran a firm that operated across the DC area, called Pamela Martin & Associates.
She maintains this was an above- board enterprise, "a high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behaviour." If some of her girls over-stepped the mark, Ms Palfrey contends, that was their fault, not hers. For prosecutors however it was a call girl ring, featuring college-educated young ladies, for whose attentions the going rate was $300 (£150) an hour.
Whatever the truth of the matter, one thing is already clear. Hell hath no fury like a madam scorned. Ms Palfrey considers herself a victim, placed in an impossible position when the IRS tax authorities last October froze "her assets and entire life savings, thus rendering her unable to hire lawyers to defend herself against such baseless allegations. So what is a lady to do in these circumstances? She must make the best of the one asset she does have left: in this case, those names and numbers.
Initially, she told reporters in a fine imitation of a damsel in distress, she considered selling the phone records. Quickly however she thought better of the idea, for fear the documents "might end up in the possession of an unscrupulous person or persons". Perish the thought. Her decision moreover had nothing to do with the fact that a court had issued an order barring her from doing so. It was "an ethically conscientious choice", taken by herself and Montgomery Blair Sibley, a flamboyant lawyer whom Ms Palfrey does seem to have found, despite her advertised impecunity.
In the end the pair decided to hand over - for free of course -
a sampling of 46lb (yes 46 lb) of phone invoices and bills to "a responsible news outlet" - in this case ABC News. And she added, sweetly venomous, although ABC News was under "no obligation whatsoever to me", she did expect its reporting "to help identify other potential witnesses for my defence".
By seizing her assets, the federal authorities had left her no choice in the matter. But wasn't this just blackmail, a reporter asked Mr Silbey.
"Blackmail?" came the reply. "No, just the due process of law." All will be revealed on Friday, in the ABC programme 20/20, in which Mr Tobias is expected to appear. In the meantime Brian Ross, the ABC reporter on the story, claimed he had been told by Mr Tobias that
"he had had gals come over to the condo to give me a massage". But he maintained, there had been "no sex". Thus far the only public figure of note to surface in the affair was Harlan Ullman, a former naval officer who helped devise the military doctrine of Shock and Awe - the use of dominant force and spectacular displays of power to overwhelm an opponent, that featured in the initial attack on Iraq in March 2003. "The allegations do not dignify a response," was his terse comment
----------------------------------------------
Now all that's needed is for a dozen or so of those innocent sexless massage customers to testify to the innocent nature of Ms Palfrey's operation.
