Washington Shuddering at Madame’s List

Washington is shivering in fear of “DC Madame Palfrey’s list.” Once made public, it could be one of the biggest scandals in the U.S. since Palfrey’s list of clients is highly likely to include high-profile politicians. Women who offered services are said to also have professional occupations such as professors.

On April 27, Randall Tobias (65), the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, resigned from his position under the suspicion that he was a client of an illegal escort service run by Deborah Palfrey. Tobias was on Palfrey’s 2002-2006 lists of clients obtained by the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and he stepped down after getting a call from ABC News asking if he was a client.

Tobias, who served as CEO at AT&T (communications) and Eli Lilly (pharmaceuticals), joined the Bush administration in 2003, and served as an administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is responsible for overseeing all foreign assistance activities of the U.S. government, and Head of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Global AIDS Coordination. Tobias’s involvement in the scandal came as a big shock to the State Department as he has long asserted that a war against global prostitution should be launched in order to prevent AIDS.

Palfrey, who was prosecuted for running an escort service allegedly involved in prostitution last year, conducted a business in which she sent a young woman to a client’s house after taking orders on the phone. Palfrey’s advertisements say that “a customer who orders before 9 p.m. can have a wider variety of choices.” Palfrey claimed that in clients’ houses, imaginary customer service was taking place which was irrelevant to sexual intercourse and that she was not running a prostitution network. In fact, Tobias said to ABC News that, “There was no sexual intercourse. I just had a massage. This is like ordering a pizza, so I don’t have any idea about the woman other than she was Hispanic.” In the U.S., sexual massage or nude dancing are not subject to criminal charges.

However, it appears that Tobias’s assertion is hardly convincing. Palfrey already served 18 months in prison for running a prostitution ring in California in 1991.

ABC News reported that it obtained thousands of names and tens of thousands of telephone numbers, and that it hinted at the possibility that it could make public more names on the escort list, saying, “We discovered the names of politicians and lobbyists.” This is why Washington is trembling in fear of the escort list of Palfrey’s, who has been nicknamed “The Washington DC Madam.” The New York Times reported in April that the names of a Defense Department official and political consultant Dick Morris were mentioned in court. Morris denied his involvement with the escort service, saying, “I am not a client.”

A reporter for ABC, Brian Ross, said, “What is surprising is that some of the women who worked for the service were professors, scientists and military officials.” It was discovered that 130 women aged between 23 and 55 worked for this escort service, which was run from 1993 to 2006. A 90-minute outcall service cost $275. An investigation confirmed that Palfrey received $750,000 (700 million won) from the women offering outcall services.

Last month, Palfrey stated on ABC News that, “I will disclose my list. I will call my customers at my trial and get them to make statements that my business was not a escort service so that I can be cleared of charges.” The U.S. media reports that Palfrey’s strategy for the trial is to threaten her clients with possible disclosure of the list.

It is hard to predict what move Palfrey will make next. She posted a statement on her homepage saying, “I need money for legal costs. I want to sell my list to whoever gives me the money.” The court ordered that the telephone number list not be made public because of Palfrey’s unpredictable behavior, but the order came not early enough to prevent part of her list from making its way to ABC.

srkim@donga.com