Former escorts and their clients testified that the so-called D.C. Madam never told them to have sex, but it was generally understood that that’s what was going to happen.
In the second day of the racketeering trial against Deborah Jean Palfrey, a handful of the government’s witnesses talked about how they used the escort service and mailed the money to Palfrey in California for arranging the liaisons.
The women and their clients said they had sex during nearly every meeting, but under cross-examination they admitted that Palfrey, 52, never directly told them to have sex.
“I was told to talk to them, make them feel better and what will be, will be,” said Andrea Detty, 30, of Great Falls, Va., who worked for Palfrey for about two months. “She never asked; I never told.”
Most of the witnesses were granted immunity from prosecution. The women were soft-spoken; the clients, both lawyers, were talkative.
The call girls and customers said they learned about the business, Pamela Martin and Associates, through an advertisement in the Yellow Pages. New recruits sent cover letters and photos of themselves and were told to meet with a client to see if the woman was suitable for the job.
Customers were given a menu of women and what they looked like. The girls would meet the men for up to an hour-and-a-half for $250. The women said they got paid whether they had sex or not.
Sharon King, 40, of Leesburg, said she had sex with 79 of the 80 men she was set up with during the six months she worked for Palfrey.
“This was a criminal enterprise. We knew why we were there,” King said.
One woman, a 46-year-old mother of three, testified that she went on six appointments but never had sex with the men. She said Palfrey told her that the business offered companionship. She quit after a man asked her for oral sex.
Palfrey called her “a nitwit,” she said.
Paul Huang, a 44-year-old lawyer from Rockville, said he used the service about a 100 times. On the two occasions when he did not have sex with the girls, Huang said, he did not pay Palfrey.
“She provided a service, and I was a customer of her service, a good customer,” he said. “It was great.”
