DOCUMENT: Crime

D.C. Madam Can Peddle "Call" List

Judge rules Palfrey can distribute escort service's phone logs

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D.C. Madam Can Peddle "Call" List

JULY 5--A federal judge today gave the green light to the so-called D.C. Madam to distribute phone records that contain the numbers of her upscale and connected clientele. In a ruling filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Judge Gladys Kessler vacated two previous orders that barred veteran pimp Deborah Palfrey, 51, from selling or distributing a decade's worth of phone records for Pamela Martin & Associates, the escort service Palfrey founded in 1993 and ran for 13 years. In the ruling, a copy of which you'll find below, Kessler rejected various prosecution arguments, including the claim that potential witnesses could be harassed if the phone logs were disseminated. Before Kessler issued a pair of temporary restraining orders, Palfrey provided ABC News with four years worth of her escort service's phone logs, which the network used for a May sweeps report on '20/20.' The records are Palfrey's own property and not the subject of a government forfeiture action. As such, Kessler ruled, she was not going to take the 'extraordinary step of freezing the personal property of an individual, not yet convicted of any crime, and barring her from giving away that property.' (8 pages)