Confessions of a D.C. Madam: The Politics of Sex, Lies, and Blackmail
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Confessions of a D.C. Madam: The Politics of Sex, Lies, and Blackmail
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781937584290 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trine Day |
| Publication date: | 03/19/2015 |
| Pages: | 216 |
| Sales rank: | 145,579 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
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Confessions of a D.C. Madam
The Politics of Sex, Lies, and Blackmail
By Henry W. Vinson, Nick Bryant
Trine Day LLC
Copyright © 2014 Henry Walter VinsonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-937584-30-6
CHAPTER 1
Déjà vu
I routinely wake between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. without the benefit of an alarm clock, and on that particular morning I awoke around 5:00 a.m. I'm self-employed and my businesses are flourishing, so I have the luxury of waking whenever I decide to awake, but nearly eight years of incarceration, courtesy of the federal government, have hardwired me to have an early-to-bed and early-to-rise constitution. I've never been accused of indolence, even though the government and media have branded me as a criminal mastermind of sorts.
After I climbed out of bed, I quietly stepped into the bedroom's walk-in closet and slipped into a light blue sweat suit and running shoes. Before departing the bedroom, I gazed at my partner who was sound asleep on the bed. I descended a flight of stairs and walked through the living room into the kitchen. I generally shun food in the early morning hours, but I usually imbibe a mug of green tea before I start navigating the day. I filled the tea kettle with water and deposited it on the stove. I then peered out the kitchen window into the predawn darkness, ruminating about the upcoming day, until the whistling tea kettle abruptly pierced my reveries. After pouring a mug of scalding water, I plopped a bag of green tea into it and took a few sips of the tea, which gave me a slight sense of invigoration.
I flicked on the basement light and bounced down the stairs. As I surveyed the basement's treadmill, StairMaster, elliptical, and Nautilus, I caught a glimpse of myself in the basement's mirrored walls. Somnolence covered my face like a wilted mask, and incorrigible tufts of blond hair had yet to be tamed by a shower and a brush. I reached for the remote, resting on the treadmill, and I flicked on the television that was mounted on the wall. I gazed upward at CNN as I started trotting on the treadmill. CNN and the treadmill have been a morning ritual I've cultivated since my previous stint in prison.
I had been on the treadmill for about ten minutes, listlessly peering upwards at the television, when the expression "D.C. Madam" sliced through the air. The words jolted me as if they were fired from a stun gun, and I felt momentary paralysis. I was nearly hurled from the treadmill, but I had the wherewithal to leap off the track while I became transfixed on the television. CNN was reporting on the case of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who ran a Washington, D.C.-based escort service. The media had branded her as the D.C. madam. CNN flashed a picture of Ms. Palfrey: She had shoulder length brunette hair, benign bronze eyes, and a porcelain complexion. She had the appearance of a stylish librarian or high school English teacher, even though the government accused her of being a "racketeer."
The media had branded me a "D.C. madam" years before Deborah Jeane Palfrey was given that distinction. Although the media's reportage on me has been distorted and derisive, it's indeed accurate that at the sprite age of twenty-nine I was the proprietor of the largest gay escort service in Washington, D.C. The Washington Post's skewed coverage of me was due to the fact that the newspaper — by either commission or omission — took its queue from the federal government, which manufactured a labyrinth of lies about my circumstances.
The federal government also unleashed a reign of terror on my family and me. In fact, the feds even threatened to indict my elderly mother, and one newspaper reported that Secret Service agents actually kicked down the front door of my sister's home and held my brother-in-law at gunpoint. The feds felt it was imperative to ensure my silence by any means necessary, because I had witnessed events that invariably would have ignited seismic political cataclysms — political cataclysms that had the potential to jeopardize the administration of George H.W. Bush and the subsequent Bush dynasty.
Given my former incarnation as a D.C. madam, I followed the tribulations, trial, and death of Deborah Jeane Palfrey with intense interest. I marveled at the striking similarities between our cases, and I empathized with her dire circumstances. On Larry King Live, Ms. Palfrey dispensed a warning to Americans about their corrupt political system: "... think about it a bit, and you'll come to the conclusion that we have come to. That there are possible people who have used the service who have become the subjects and targets of blackmail ..."
I'm uncertain if Ms. Palfrey witnessed the blackmailing of politicians first-hand, but I was certainly privy to the blackmailing of politicians and sundry powerbrokers. If the Department of Justice, the Secret Service, and the Washington Post had not been fixated on covering up the facts and individuals enmeshed in my case, Americans would have learned the unsavory truth that blackmail is endemic to their political system. The sexual escapades of the D.C. elite are vastly different than the infidelities of the average citizen — thus their susceptibility to blackmail.
Before Ms. Palfrey's trial, she imparted flurries of sound bites to the media intimating that she was the custodian of too many secrets, and the government would be unlocking a Pandora's Box if it prosecuted her. "I am sure as heck am not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, you know, four to eight years here, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever," Palfrey told ABC. "Not for a second. I'll bring every last one of them in if necessary."
I, like Ms. Palfrey, thought that the secrets I had amassed over the years would discourage the government from prosecuting me. After the Secret Service's initial raid and ransacking of my home, and prior to being indicted, I remarked to a reporter: "Somebody set us up because they were scared about what we knew about high government officials. ... And anyways, if they do try to indict me, I'll have some good stories to tell." I was a mere 29 years old when I dispensed that quote, and, regrettably, I had the aplomb and inexperience of youth, which is an extremely flawed tandem when locking horns with the federal government. I woefully underestimated the ruthlessness and absolute power of my adversary.
Ms. Palfrey followed through on her threat and attempted to unfurl her secrets: She presented ABC News with forty-three pounds of printed pages that contained the phone numbers of the thousands of johns who frequented her escort service over the years. Ms. Palfrey had no idea of the names accompanying the vast majority of the phone numbers, and she hoped that ABC would decipher that information. She felt that the potentially pyrokinetic scoop she handed to ABC would force the government on the defensive and impede its zealous crusade to imprison her.
But her counter-offensive spectacularly backfired: ABC refused to follow through on the revelations contained in the 43-pound printout. ABC correspondent Brian Ross announced that "based on our reporting, it turned out not to be as newsworthy as we thought in terms of the names," even though it would emerge that Palfrey's patrons included, for starters, a U.S. Senator, a Department of Defense consultant who developed the "shock and awe" doctrine deployed on Iraq, and State Department official Randall Tobias. In a stunning demonstration of hypocrisy, Tobias was the Agency for International Development's Director of Foreign Assistance, and he managed agencies that required the foreign recipients of AIDS assistance to condemn prostitution.
The federal government subjected both Ms. Palfrey and me to crucible that was designed to ensure our silence — or ultimately crush us. "They just destroy you on every level — financially, emotionally, psychologically," Ms. Palfrey reportedly said of federal prosecutors. In the case of Ms. Palfrey, the U.S. Attorney for the District of D.C. smacked her with a 14-count RICO indictment that included money laundering, racketeering, and using the mail for illegal purposes in connection with a prostitution ring, and she was facing a bewildering fifty-five years behind bars. RICO is an acronym for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and it was originally designed to dismantle the Mafia, as RICO allows for mob bosses to be tried for crimes that were sanctioned on their behalf. Ms. Palfrey was merely running an escort service, so it seems that the RICO Act was prosecutorial overkill in her circumstances — unless, of course, prosecutors felt it was imperative to leverage her silence.
I, too, was merely running an escort service, but the U.S. Attorney for the District of D.C. walloped me with a 43-count RICO indictment. I was potentially staring at 295 years behind bars! I was also looking at the possibility of a two million dollar fine, and, as I've previously mentioned, the feds were threatening to indict my mother.
Although my case and Ms. Palfrey's share numerous parallels, a major point of divergence is the proficiency of our respective attorneys. D.C.-based attorney Montgomery Sibley represented Ms. Palfrey and Greta Van Susteren represented me. Mr. Sibley vigorously defended Ms. Palfrey, but he had to contend with the feds judicial chicanery and sleight-of-hand. Ms. Palfrey's initial trial judge had authorized Mr. Sibley's subpoenas of the White House, State Department, CIA, etc., and he also authorized subpoenas for AT&T Mobility, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile USA, and Alltel, which would have mandated those carriers to provide Ms. Palfrey with the names and addresses of the individuals who contacted her escort service. Inexplicably, Ms. Palfrey's initial trial judge was replaced by a judge who quashed Mr. Sibley's subpoenas en masse, and thereby eviscerated the defense's case.
At the outset of my case, my attorney, Greta Van Susteren, seemed very committed to a vigorous defense on my behalf, and she deployed a nearly identical tactic as Mr. Sibley — she filed an eleven-page motion to mandate the release of my clientele list that the government had previously seized from me. Ms. Van Susteren argued that the names of my patrons should be released, because, if the government's assertion was accurate and my "escort" service was, in actuality, a prostitution ring, my clients aided and abetted a criminal enterprise.
But the Assistant U.S. Attorney for D.C. vehemently contested Ms. Van Susteren's motion with a remarkably disingenuous argument: He contended that the names of my patrons shouldn't be made public, because the U.S. Attorney's office feared the "intimidation of government witnesses due to the embarrassing nature of the case." My trial judge sided with the prosecution and barred the public disclosure of my clientele. After my trial judge acquiesced to the U.S. Attorney's office, Ms. Van Susteren started to change her tune, and she urged me to take the government's plea bargain.
By then, my family and I had been subjected to a relentless campaign of terror, and I faced life in prison — I felt as if the feds were wielding the Sword of Damocles over my head. At Ms. Van Susteren's behest, I accepted the government's plea bargain, and I was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison. The feds also included a caveat that wasn't overtly stated in my plea agreement: My 5-year sentence was based on the contingency that I not divulge a word about the particulars of my case to the media.
Although I'm uncertain whether or not it's a mere coincidence, I should point out that the individuals who were instrumental in the cover up of my case experienced significant upward mobility: Ms. Van Susteren now has her very own television show on FOX, and the U.S. Attorney for the District of D.C., who imprisoned me and ensured my silence, is now a Vice President of the Raytheon Corporation, one of the world's largest defense contactors.
After I was gagged and banished to a federal prison, I've been told that the government sealed, in perpetuity, a myraid of documents in my case. I'm aware of at least three individuals who have attempted to unseal my documentation, but the government has successfully rebuffed each of them.
Conversely, Ms. Palfrey opted to fight City Hall, but the U.S. Attorney for D.C. triumphed in her case, and she was found guilty on all counts. As Ms. Palfrey awaited sentencing, she purportedly committed suicide. Ms. Palfrey's death is mired in conjecture, rumor, and innuendo, and the Internet is rife with speculation that Ms. Palfrey's suicide was indeed a murder.
Ms. Palfrey publicly stated on a handful of occasions that she would never commit suicide, which buttresses the contentions that she was murdered. Moreover, after Ms. Palfrey's demise, an Orlando affiliate of CBS interviewed the building manager of the Park Lake Towers in Orlando, where Ms. Palfrey owned a condo. The building manager disclosed that he had talked to Ms. Palfrey just three days before her lifeless body was found in her mother's aluminum shed. "Jeane Palfrey was a class act," said the building manager. "Her way out of this world certainly would not have been in an aluminum shed attached to a mobile home in Tarpon Springs, Florida." The manager also discussed a disturbing conversation he had with Ms. Palfrey: "She insinuated that there is a contract out for her, and I fully believe they succeeded."
The Washington Post was quick to declare that Palfrey had taken her own life — despite the possibility of indications to the contrary. I mention the latter point because the Washington Post reported a myriad of details about my case that were inaccurate — despite the possibility of indications to the contrary — or solely based on the word of federal law enforcement officials. Although I'm unwilling to speculate whether or not the death of Ms. Palfrey was a suicide or a murder, I feared for my life when I was a D.C. madam due to the threats discharged by government officials and also by individuals who were reportedly affiliated with the government.
As Ms. Palfrey and I regrettably discovered, Americans have a collective naiveté about D.C. sex scandals, believing that they are the mere dalliances and moral failings of a handful of individuals. Americans have great difficulty accepting that many of our politicians are endowed with a potent alchemy of power, arrogance, and lust — an alchemy that fluently translates into extramarital affairs or illicit sexual encounters. Unfortunately, the federal government has a greater dexterity to cover up scandals and crimes that lend themselves to blackmail in D.C. due to the fact that the capital's law enforcement is exclusively controlled by various branches of the federal government: The U.S. Attorney for D.C., who prosecutes all D.C. crimes, is appointed by the president. The FBI and Secret Service are also minions of the executive branch, and Congress controls the budget of D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the D.C. press corps played an integral role in the cover up surrounding my case. I've already alluded to the fact that the Washington Post aided and abetted the cover up of my case by tainting its reportage with the government's top-spin, but the Washington Post was by no means the only media outlet that covered up the factual circumstances of my case: Perhaps a number of the high-flyers in the D.C. press corps aren't mindful of the blackmail that has usurped the American political process, but I'm also aware of nationally recognized pundits who are potentially compromised themselves — because they were patrons of my escort service.
I initially thought that if I adhered to the Faustian pact I made with the government and remained mute about the feds' labyrinth of lies and served my time, I would be permitted to live out the balance of my life in peace, but the government and media have continued to persecute me. Bloggers on the Internet have also taken their queue from the government and the media, and the Internet is rife with lies about me too.
Although I've transformed myself into a legitimate and very successful businessman, and I am a poster boy for a reformed felon, I've been inexorably stalked by a wayward federal judiciary, and a pernicious 20-year assault on my character. Consequently, I have finally decided to rupture my silence and expose the illicit skullduggery I witnessed as a D.C. madam, and also the Byzantine machinations that the government fabricated to ensure my silence and incarcerate me.
CHAPTER 2Country Roads
Twenty-nine years before I was christened the "D.C. madam," I was born in South Williamson, Kentucky, at the Appalachian Regional Hospital on November 27, 1960. My parents, Charles and Joyce Vinson, lived in Nolan, West Virginia, a tiny hamlet nestled in a remote southwest corner of the state. Nolan was built along the banks of the meandering Tug Fork River, which divides West Virginia's Mingo County and Kentucky's Pike County. Topographically, downtown Nolan was a linear spattering of two-dozen buildings that were wedged among besieging poplars, sugar maples, red maples, white oaks, and red oaks. Like scores of towns sprinkled throughout the rolling and dense woodlands of West Virginia, Nolan emerged because of the booming coal industry of the 1800s and 1900s. The Norfolk and Western Railway cuts right through Nolan, and thundering trains, laden with coal, were a constant presence in my childhood.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Confessions of a D.C. Madam by Henry W. Vinson, Nick Bryant. Copyright © 2014 Henry Walter Vinson. Excerpted by permission of Trine Day LLC.
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Table of Contents
Foreword: A World Unknown 1
1 Déjà vu 7
2 Country Roads 15
3 Songs of Innocence 25
4 Coming of Age 37
5 Dreams 47
6 D.C. 55
7 Nightlife 69
8 Blackmail 81
9 The Prince of Darkness 93
10 In the Eye of a Huricane 103
11 A Light in the Shadows 115
12 The Might Wurlitzer 127
13 Sleepless Nights 137
14 Greta and L. Ron 147
15 The Big House 157
16 Back to the Big House 169
17 A Third Act 183
18 Songs of Experience 195
Index 203