A woman accused of running a Washington-area prostitution service that recruited university students through Diamondback ads is threatening to sell her list of 10,000 clients after authorities seized from her more than $1.5 million in real estate, stocks and cash.
Prosecutors say Deborah Jean Palfrey, 50, placed advertisements in several local media outlets, including The Diamondback, seeking college-educated women to work as prostitutes under the guise of a non-sexual escort service.
After 13 years of running the business under the company name Pamela Martin and Associates, Palfrey was indicted on federal racketeering charges last Thursday.
In all, the service employed 132 women, who charged between $250 and $300 for their services and kept half their profits before shipping the other half via money orders to Palfrey at her Vallejo, Calif., home. Court documents did not specify how many of these women, if any, were university students. The business generated $2 million in total revenue over all its years in operation, said Montgomery Blair Sibley, Palfrey’s attorney, in an interview.
The indictment comes after the federal government in October froze all of Palfrey’s assets that were related to her business in what is known as a civil forfeiture case, separate from the criminal charges she now faces, Sibley said. It is common for a suspect to be criminally charged after a civil forfeiture case because the civil trial usually requires less evidence and prosecutors need more time to build a criminal case, said assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Cowden.
Now Palfrey may be forced to put her list of clients up for sale to pay for her defense, Sibley said.
“She’s found herself backed into a corner,” he said according to an Associated Press report. “There’s only essentially one asset she could liquidate.”
Palfrey is scheduled to make her first appearance in court for the criminal charges at a federal courthouse in Washington next Friday.
According to court documents, the prostitution ring targeted women at least 22 years old with at least two years of college experience to outfit what its former website boasted was “Washington’s premier adult service.” It operated in homes and hotel rooms throughout Washington, Maryland and Virginia, court filings said.
Sibley said the service operated entirely through cash, and that Palfrey gave her employees tax statements every year, but kept no records for the business.
Palfrey was convicted of prostitution charges once before in 1991 and served 18 months in prison, but denied all charges in the civil forfeiture case, saying that while she ran an escort service, she never condoned her employees’ performing paid sexual activities.
Sibley said he would subpoena dozens of Palfrey’s clients and escorts to testify if the case goes to trial.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact reporter Ben Slivnick at benslivnick@gmail.com.
