Taken away? By? . . . the prosecutors. And
used to ? : . . . Conceivably many
victims here. Can't in good conscience ask
the madam to "just take one for the team" but
where's her advantage in causing a disaster? The
selective outing by the "Time Warner Babe " in
NYC hasn't helped her any.
Washington, DC LE pinched high level escort. Now her legal fees are mounting quickly and the income has been reduced drastically so to cover her butt she is willing to sell the names of her high caliber clients to anyone willing to pay. As a result of this some politicians must be living on the hot seat everyday now. Read the story. In case the link fails to work just copy this and paste it into your browser's address bar: http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2Fblogs%2Fanneschroeder%2F0307%2FDC_Madame_to_Sell_10000_Phone_Records_of_HighEnd_Washington_Clients.html
My question is, do her client's have any recourse and seek court order barring her from selling names?
IMO, her clients have no recourse and would get no court ordered injunction to bar her from selling her list of names. I've heard of statutes which prohibit criminals from profiting from their crimes by selling their life stories as autobiographies, movies, etc. However, those statutes usually pertain to felonies involving victims (i.e. murderers).
Like it or not, the law considers hobbyists to be low-level criminals. So think about it. You file a petition: John Smith v. Madame X.
a) Civil lawsuits are a matter of public record, available for publicity by the press. You've "outed" yourself for public consumption merely by filing the suit.
b) What if one tries to file as "John Doe v. Madame X" and asserts a confidentiality right to privacy from filing under his real name? Again, the court unlikely will consider perceived misdemeanants under the law to have a privacy right for their past misdemeanors. That non-privacy opinion would extend both to the filing of the lawsuit as "John Doe" as well as to the merits of the injunction petition to bar publication.
The court would find no public interest to be served by entertaining a petition from a high-level "hobbyist" to conceal his identity absent a thorough bribery of the right channels. The hobbyist may as well go and pay for her legal defense to avoid the publication since that is why she purportedly needs $ if it's that important to him.
Here's another question then:
Couldn't the prosecution file a motion to bar her from selling this info (during the trial)? She's effectively trying to coerce people into paying money to help her defense. I'd imagine that at least some people in her client records might be potential prosecution witnesses.
I think you're onto something, glen. Actually, I think the last paragraph of my prior post might be erroneous. The prosecutor could do something like what you said.
I read a good post on another discussion board which discussed the possibility of additional charges against her for blackmail and extortion. The prosecutor could inform the defendant and her attorney that the Government will seek such additional charges if the defendant follows through on her idea to publish client names. Such a prosecutorial warning hopefully would cause her to drop the plan.
This misfit is causing potential social mayhem with possible sociopolitical reverberations. She knew what she was doing was illegal, but defied the law the second time, now that she got nailed second time I hope the prosecution go before the judge in pretrial motion and seek injuction against her profitting from an illegal act of her own. In fact it would be nice if the court just took the possession of her black book.
I read the threat that was posted on her legal defense fund website (url below). They even post a page of Sprint cellualr phone records from 1996, so she is already making good on her threat by showing some of the records to demonstrate that she means business.
Her attorney runs that website and is actively involved in collecting "donations" (via paypal) for her fund. Perhaps as an attorney, he knows something about the law that we do not, but if I were an attorney, I know that I could never condone such an act, let alone be the key proponent of such a threat.
I thought that judges have wide lattitude in issuing orders to protect the progress of the case. Her threat, in my opinion, is a direct interference (or potential interference) in the case itself.
Coercion is a crime where one tries to motivate the actions of the other (an act they ordinarilly would not have done) through a threatened action of their own. If she wanted to sell this list, she'd actually be 100% free to do so (of her own free will) at any time. But to "threaten" to sell it, is obviously directed at one of two groups of people (or perhaps both). 1) the prosecution, trying to get them to drop the case for fear that political friends might be damaged by the info and 2) the men whose phone numbers are in her records.
I think a strong case can be made that she is trying to coerce someone. She did originate an email to the prosection where she made the same threat, so I think they'd have little problem showing that they are the primary target of the coercive attempt.
Thanks to the Patriot Act, the government LE already knows who this person is before they even busted her. They probably didn't bust her until some political or person of interest to them started making appointments with her. The
Patriot Act has been used to get alot of high level officials "out of the way" and it's only when the "powers that be" want to use it against the client for alternate reasons will they do a bust. Must be a former public official or a religious figure that was the client who made the threat. The government knows practically everything we do now for pet's sake!
I believe this case has ties to the Randy "Duke" Cunningham corruption case. I think this escort service was used to give the congressman "gifts". The paper trail led them to Palfrey's business.
GlennGary - you are on the ball! No madam gets busted just to be busted. It's always about a "bigger picture". Kelly Brandon
The federal prosecutors indeed are asking the judge to put a gag order on the sale of phone records. We shall see if the judge allows her to profit from her crime. Those phone records ought be taken away from her like some of other ill gotten assets.
Taken away? By? . . . the prosecutors. And
used to ? : . . . Conceivably many
victims here. Can't in good conscience ask
the madam to "just take one for the team" but
where's her advantage in causing a disaster? The
selective outing by the "Time Warner Babe " in
NYC hasn't helped her any.
It gets better. Palfrey is actually suing one of her former girls for violating the terms of her employment contract. Apparently the girl had (get this) SEX whle working for her. Can you imagine that?
She had the paper work done probably after she got busted and now is using it against her employees to divert attention from her, smoke and mirrors tactoc.
Suing one of her former girls is a brilliant legal move on her part.
She was indicted due to secret grand jury testimony offered (probably in exchange for leniency) by her former workers. Dr. Neble is probably one of them. Suing them in civil court forces the prosecution to either reveal their identities (to the public) or think a bit harder about actually going through with the case. Naming Dr. Neble in her civil suit sends a STRONG message to her former girls that she will most certainly out them if they are so bold as to testify against her.
Her next move will probably be to sue a bunch of "John Does" to send a message to those men who might have also testified at the grand jury.
I think the whole 'sell the phone records' thing will go away, but her attorney is doing a good job of testing the true resolve of the government in prosecuting this case (with this lawsuit). By doing the assest forfeiture thing, they've shown they want her brought down. Now we'll see just how bad they really want it, because it will start to get messy now.
My guess is that since this case has ties to the Randy "Duke" Cunningham case (and also Dick Morris) that the government wants to punish pretty much everyone who profited from the congressional influence peddling.
Her "legal eagle" is good maneuvering all pawn girls in place to be later perhaps traded for concessions from the federal prosecutors. With Attorney General Gonzalez being under fire for dismissing eight or nine federal prosecutors for politically motivated reasons this case may be a new weapon if some Democrats will be discovered in the black book. Come to think of it, if the Democrats buy those phone records with their favorite philonthropist's money they could make the Watergate look small by comparison. It will be intersting how this unfolds.
I'm not sure that this box of records will become a huge political tool. From what I hear, both dems and repubs are equal opportunity pooners. If anything, the Republicans and Democrats will join forces, purchase the records together and then have a bi-partisan bonfire out in DelMarVa (and chug a few Coronas).
The US Atty is probably looking at this case and saying to himself "Aint I gonna be the huge asshole once the shit hits the fan". I give the whole thing a month. They'll drop the charges, but retain ownership of her ill-gotten gains. She'll have her life shattered and destroyed, but she will not be in jail. So in the end, the govt still wins.