Death Of A Madam
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the “DC Madam” whose call-girl service got busted in the cross-hairs of partisan payback, has committed suicide. She hung herself at her mother’s home in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
Jeane, I am so sorry. I know you swore to me that you’d never serve another term in prison for prostitution, or anything else. You almost lost your eyesight the first time. I’m sure you asked your lawyers if there was any hope for your sentencing, and I guess it must have looked bleak.
…
Was Jeane suicidal, in the first place? Yes, but I’d describe that carefully. She wasn’t irrational to think she wouldn’t survive another round in a penitentiary; her health was poor. And she was brittle, the kind of person who is aware of her considerable intellect and education, but who finds herself in unlucky and vulnerable situations over and over again.
When I first heard this news, I had a resentful nutbar conspiracy theorist moment. This woman had a little black book and she tried to use it in her defense, for all the good it did her. How skeptical, I wondered, should I be of the “suicide” story? How could we ever know if two hard men came over her mother’s back fence in the dark of night, with a rope?
To that limited extent, Susie’s closer view is marginally comforting. But it’s still a sordid tale; as a matter of social policy, we-the-people have driven a woman to her death for facilitating the pleasures of powerful men. I’m not seeing why it was important to do so.
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Where’s the little black book?
I have the impression she used it, or tried to — and that’s how Vitter et al. got outed. But I dunno whether she still had secrets unrevealed.
She was on numerous shows like Alex Jones. I do NOT believe she killed herself.
Whether or not she or someone else drew the noose tight, this poor ladies life was ended by the very people who used her when she lived.
A sad and depressing incident. (Sorry if that sounds cold, I don’t mean it to). Says something about our society, and not in a good way.
When Vitter, R-Louisiana, was “outed” for using the services of the “D.C. Madam” (Two calls to which it has been found, were placed while House roll call votes were in progress. At the time, he was still in the House of Representatives…), little was said about his frequenting houses of prostitution in Louisiana (including one in which one of the hookers began the trade in that very building at the tender age of sixteen, working for her own mother, who was the madam, and her grandmother, who ran the phones).
Vitter was a staunch supporter of “conservative values”, whose legislative agenda included positions ranging from pro-life to pro-gun rights while legislating against same-sex marriage, against family planning funding for abortion providers, against gambling, against increases in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) program, and against the United Nations. Vitter’s stated positions also included abolishing the estate tax, and shifting the tax burden instead to the less wealthy (That would be you and me). In 2001, he co-authored legislation to restrict the number of physicians allowed to prescribe RU-486, better known as the “morning after” pill. Vitter advocated abstinence-only sex education, emphasizing abstinence while excluding issues involving birth control and safe sex. (and we all know how well THAT worked!)
Meanwhile this Louisiana brothel that Vitter was supporting, (allegedly while he was having the long-term affair with Wendy Cortez, a.k.a. Wendy Ellis), was being heavily watched by the F.B.I., who was busy taping over 5,000 hours of the brothel’s sexy conversations, in order to bust this New Orleans family of prostitutes. In fact, that’s exactly what the Feds were reportedly doing early in the morning of September 11, 2001 as planes were crashing into the World Trade Center’s twin towers…
Vitter privately apologized to his colleagues in the Senate, and according to reporter Marianne Means, Republican senators gave Vitter a “loud standing ovation”.
Is Vitter dead of suicide? Facing prison time? Or STILL in office!?
In Australia our current leader was caught going to a strip club, getting drunk then being thrown out for being drunk. Doing that helped him win the election more then it hurt him.
I wish that was the same in America. All she did was have sex with people, she was over the legal age so where her clients. Its such a stupid thing to be spending money and legal time on. This whole thing has detroyed more lives then the worth of having a conviction.
I concur with Suffie. How tragic that this had to happen to someone like her while others who’ve committed far worse crimes go free.
Sorry to go against the grain in terms of sympathy, but she broke the law. She broke the law, KNOWING that it was illegal. She was going to be brought to justice. She chose instead of abiding by the laws and legal repercussions that come with them, that she would kill herself. Did the “law” drive her to her death? Yes, with a but. It drove her to her death because she vowed never to go to jail again. Are we to refrain from persecuting criminals because they threaten to kill themselves? Are we to be held hostage?
Yes I believe prostitution SHOULD be legalized, but the fact remains that it isn’t. Until it is legal, we have to obey the laws that we all agree to obey when we have citizenship to a country. The law is only as strong as the people who believe in it. Without it, there is anarchy.
You say “anarchy” like it’s a bad thing.
Needless to say, some of us don’t share your blind respect for bad laws, nor your concept that we somehow “agree to obey” them on the day that we are born, and thus acquire citizenship.
I don’t know if you encourage discussion in your thread, please remove this if it is out of place…
There are laws that protect people, and there are laws that oppress people. I am honestly not sure on which side I feel that the laws against prostitution fit.
On the one hand, there is no way I feel this lady deserved to die for what she did. On the other hand, we all take our risks as we see fit. It seems that she knew what she was facing, and she made her choice. If you break the law and are not willing to live the legal consequence, there are not many options.
I think beyond the failure of our legal system to protect the women who serve this role, it is a travesty that prison is worse than death. The way we regard and treat the people who exemplify society’s failure to live up to its own (often really skewed) standards should reflect the desire to make the country better, not our collective denial and resentment for our national shortcomings.
This is a really sad story, but I guess I respect her conviction to live or die on terms she chose for herself.
Has anyone else noticed it is only the women that have been or are facing trial?? None of the men are on trial for breaking any laws. If they would put men like Vitter in prison for breaking these laws, the laws would soon be changed when it’s the lawmakers going to prison.
My uncle broke Federal law and served seven years in a Federal penitentiary. He didn’t kill himself . . .
I’m sorry she is dead; but I have a hard time buying the conspiracy theory. Other madams have done time (Sidney Biddle Barrows, Heidi Fleiss), all of whom had powerful patrons, and they still tread the mortal coil.
As for Vitter, he should be drummed out of office, but knowing the corruption of the political machine, I doubt little more will happen.
God, this is so sad. I know she was breaking the law — in a big, political way — but what is she really guilty of? Sex? Orchestrating sex between adults? And making some money from it?
Too much emphasis on legalizing dope, not enough on legalizing sex.
That last line strikes me as kinda weird. I’m not sure who it’s aimed at, but why piss off potential freedom-loving allies?
Seems like a broader “legalizing” alliance would make more sense than sniping at the allies — as old Ben said, we must hang together, for if we do not, we shall most assuredly hang separately.
You know Bacchus, I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss your skeptical impulses in this case either. Ms. Palfrey is on record as saying she would not commit suicide and, if she was found dead, it would be murder. It’s now common-knowledge that the CIA, the FBI, and government black-ops outfits use ridicule (ex-members of these organizations have revealed the common use of such tactics in their own memoirs…) as a major first line of defense weapon against conspiracy theorist who have stumbled onto a bit of truth.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey is the second “suicide” (both by rope!)to surface so far in this case. Professor Brandy Britton, formerly of the University of Maryland, was one of Jeane’s escort service employees, and she allegedly (Her family members say Brandy was a strong, upbeat woman who wanted to fight the charges)took her own life as well, just before she was scheduled to testify in court. Jeane previously vowed to publish ALL of the names of the politicians and other government officials amongst her “johns” if she believed it looked like she was going to prison, and had commented that she herself was a good bit stronger than Brandy in regards to the suicide, and had even vowed to reporter Alex Jones that she would NOT kill herself. In fact, she feared that her life was in danger, and stated that if killed, it would probably be made to look like a suicide. The manager of Ms. Palfrey’s former condo says Ms. Palfrey was not suicidal and, further, that she believed that a contract was out for her murder. Also, she was making arrangements to pay the monthly condo fee while she was in prison for an estimated six years. Her body was found hanging in a shed behind her mother’s home. Seems awfully cruel to leave your body that way for your own mother to find, especially when your beef isn’t with your mom. Besides, women are much more likely to commit suicide by overdosing.
This is the way it’s done. Let’s not all forget model Victoria Lynne (“Vicky” or “Vicki”) Morgan, who had sex tapes of ex-President Reagan’s high-ranking cronies, who not only was diagnosed with terminal cancer after it was reported that she was writing a tell-all book that would name some VERY powerful politicians who had been a part of her BDSM activities (Cancer, you will remember is the murder-method-of-choice amongst KGB agents who need to silence someone undesirable. Former spy Alexander Litvinenko was given radioactive polonium-210 in his hotel tea after writing tell-all books.), but died after allegedly being bludgeoned to death by a roomie (who was himself dying of AIDS), who later recanted his confession to the crime. The gay roommate (who had no previous history of violence), had at first said he killed her because she was being whiny… The dying roommate just-so-happened to work at an agency along with some important Reagan supporters. Meanwhile, the incriminating sex tapes were reported stolen and never resurfaced.
When it comes to murdering an undesirable, Nixon hatchet-man Gordon Liddy always said there were ways to make it look like a suicide… Liddy was the chief operative for the White House “Plumbers” unit that existed during several years of Richard Nixon’s Presidency. Along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy masterminded the first break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building in 1972. The subsequent cover-up of the Watergate scandal led to Nixon’s resignation in 1974.
In the words of Liddy: “As Adolph Hitler was referred to throughout the Third Reich as simply der Fuhrer, so J. Edgar Hoover was referred to throughout the FBI as the Director.” Hoover storm trooper, Liddy was prepared to do whatever was deemed to be necessary, to satisfy der Fuhrer. Indeed, discussion about the liquidation of political enemies was entertained as casually as most people talk about the weather. The following Liddy narrative reflects the sinister murder plots that tyrannical intelligence spooks like Hoover were prone to embrace:
I urged as the logical and just solution that the target [Jack Anderson] be killed. Quickly. My suggestion was received with immediate acceptance, almost relief, as if they were just waiting for someone else to say for them what was really on their minds. There followed a lengthy discussion of the ways and means to accomplish the task best. Hunt [former CIA agent who has been linked as a co-conspirator in the Kennedy assassination] still enamored of the LSD approach asked Dr. Gunn [a physician retired from the CIA known for his “unorthodox application of medical and chemical knowledge”] whether a massive dose might not cause such disruption of motor function that the driver of the car would lose control of it and crash. [like Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick, the event that, according to Nixon, “would undermine Kennedy’s role as a leader of the opposition to the administration’s policies.] Dr. Gunn repeated his earlier negative advice on the use of LSD. Besides, though LSD can be absorbed through the skin, our hypothetical target might be wearing gloves against the winter cold, or be chauffeur-driven. The use of LSD was, finally dismissed. Hunt’s suggestion called to Dr. Gunn’s mind a technique used successfully abroad. It involved catching the target’s moving automobile in a sharp turn or sharp curve and hitting it with another car on the outside rear quarter. According to Dr. Gunn, if the angle of the blow and the relative speeds of the two vehicles were correct, the target vehicle would flip over, crash, and usually burn.
Liddy goes on and on talking about all kinds of different ways to murder people and about illegal FBI operations which were always staged in a manner that made it appear as though the FBI was absolutely blameless. Indeed J. Edgar Hoover routinely authorized criminal activity like illegal surveillance, mail openings, unauthorized bugging, illegal wiretaps, break-ins and murder -and it was all successfully covered up through the overriding obsession to avoid discovery. Liddy embodies the fact that murder was the ultimate consequence of Hoover’s obsession to control a particular target, and like all illegal FBI activity, it was done in a manner that “proved” that it was not the fault of the FBI even though it was. We are still just beginning to appreciate the significance of Hoover-directed tyranny. Would-be assassins like Liddy should certainly erase every single shred of doubt about the fact that J. Edgar Hoover cultivated and worked with murderers. To be sure, Liddy has never been prosecuted for murder, but like Al Capone who was also accomplished in the art of covering up criminal operations, allegations of murder follow him as closely as is evidently warranted.
According to Washington attorney Bernard Fensterwald: “G. Gordon Liddy has been reliably linked to two separate alleged murder plans during his work for Nixon’s top aides, and one other actual completed murder, during his previous FBI service.” When Liddy became Nixon’s crony and the cozy relationship between Hoover and the Nixon White House soured, Liddy and his faithful Cuban partners in crime were responsible for break-ins at Hoover’s apartment and “a poison of the thyon-phosphate genre was placed on Hoover’s personal toilet articles.”The poison induces fatal heart attacks. Howard Hunt had indicated that he had been ordered to kill Anderson with an untraceable poison and while the scheme was dropped, the simple fact that zealots with a proclivity to commit politically motivated murder had access to such diabolical resources, is in itself revolting.
The more these methods of murder become known, the more “accidental” or “suicidal” they will have to appear. So Bacchus, you may not be the “conspiracy nut” that you fear you might be…
Indeed, I agree that we should all look closely and consider the statement, “Just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”
As for the “lack of sympathy” for our lawbreakers, two small considerations:
These women have been prosecuted, as have so many madams, at a suspiciously high rate. That rate, it seems, correlates strongly with how high profile the clients were and how “dangerous” these women were to them. It is also a recurring theme that though action against the women, there are no legal repercussions for the men who patronized them, men who were equally guilty in the transaction.
Secondly, I would say that though these women willingly broke laws, they have not been brought to justice. They have been punished by our legal system, and the two are not the same.
I go along with the comments decrying the hypocrisy of the prosecution. Why wasn’t Vitter prosecuted, or any of the other Johns?
Frankly, prostitution ought to be legal and regulated – regulated for the sake and safety of the women (and the comparatively few men) involved in prostitution. What goes on between consenting adults is ‘their’ business. We exchange services for money every day, and for just about everything & anything. Why is sex illegal?
Curiously, the government’s prosecution of drug crime is almost the opposite. Just imagine if we imprisoned Johns the way we imprison drug users (while the peddlers of drugs are far less frequently prosecuted for whatever reason). My inkling is that prostitution is a white collar crime, or much more so than drug use. Justice is not blind. Our legal system prefers to go after the poor, minorities (in the case of drugs) and women (in the case of prostitution).