I held off posting this...

[Kanastrous]

There's also the fact that she violated the terms of a code of conduct that's actually (sometimes? occasionally? intermittently? mostly?) enforced.

[MKSheppard]

Link

(CNN) -- Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known as the "D.C. Madam," was found dead in Florida Thursday, according to Tarpon Springs police.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey was convicted of running a high-powered prostitution ring.

Palfrey hanged herself in a small storage shed on her mother's property where she had been staying, according to a police statement. Palfrey's mother, 76-year-old Blanche Palfrey, found the body, police said.

"Blanche Palfrey had awoken from a nap and began to search the residence for her daughter," the statement said. "When she went outside, she noticed a three-wheel bicycle had been moved that was normally kept in the shed." The older woman then saw her daughter's body hanging from a metal beam under the shed's roof, police said.

"The mother's obviously distraught," said Tarpon Springs police Capt. Jeffrey Young. "This is the hardest part in any type of situation like this, when you have a suicide. It's all the victims that are left behind."

In an earlier statement, police said, "handwritten notes were found on scene that describes (sic) the victim's intention to take her life, and foul play does not appear to be involved."

The Pinellas County Medical Examiner's Office will determine the cause of death, police said. Watch police confirm death of "D.C. Madam" »

The county sheriff's office and the FBI are participating in the investigation.

Palfrey's lawyers expressed sadness at news reports.

"I am devastated to hear about this," Montgomery Blair Sibley told CNN by phone before police confirmed the death.

Her court-appointed lawyer Preston Burton said, "This is tragic news. My heart goes out to her mother."

She was found guilty April 15 of money laundering, racketeering and mail fraud and faced a maximum 55-year prison term at her sentencing, which was scheduled for July 24.

Prosecutors estimated she would have received a sentence between 57-71 months, about six years, because of sentencing guidelines and other factors that would have been taken into account.

"I'm looking at 55 years in a federal penitentiary and at my age that is virtually a life sentence," Palfrey told CNN Radio in March. "Realistically we estimate between 8 and 15 years. I'm also looking at the complete forfeiture of my entire life savings and work."

Palfrey told ABC News last year she would never return to prison, after serving time in the 1990s for other prostitution-related charges. "I sure as heck am not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, you know, four to eight years."

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Washington, which prosecuted Palfrey, said: "We extend our condolences to Ms. Palfrey's family."

At least one lawmaker, Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, a Republican, turned up in the phone records of her business, Pamela Martin & Associates.

State Department official Randall Tobias resigned in May 2007 after confirming he patronized Palfrey's business.

She argued it was a legitimate, legal escort service.

[Sidewinder]

Palfrey told ABC News last year she would never return to prison, after serving time in the 1990s for other prostitution-related charges. "I sure as heck am not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, you know, four to eight years."

Although her death is a tragedy (she's not some child molester, after all), the fact that she had a prior conviction makes me wonder, "Didn't she learn a lesson last time?"

[Kitsune]

Palfrey is claimed to have committed suicide

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

I usually don't believe in Conspiracies but have to wonder about this one?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I think I just hit upon what separates civilized people like us from evil authoritarians like the neocons: We see beatings, rapes, 'disappearings', nurders disguised as suicide, torture, and wholesale war as something to rightfully and strenuously be abhorred. They, being monsters with zero moral compass past legalism, see these atrocities as mere extensions of politics to be monetized and profited from. Note I'm not saying she was murdered, but the recordings of her repeating for years that she believes she might be disappeared lend weight toward the need for a full investigation.

[Kanastrous]

This kind of thing always reminds me of Danny Casolaro...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Casolaro

...wiki will do, for this.

[MKSheppard]

Link

Suicide Notes of Deborah Jean Palfrey Reveal 'D.C. Madam' Hanged Herself to Avoid Jail

Monday , May 05, 2008

"D.C. Madam" Deborah Jean Palfrey wrote suicide notes to her mother and sister explaining that she hanged herself because she couldn't bear the thought of a future in prison.

"I want you to know how very much I love and appreciate you," Palfrey, 52, wrote in sprawling script to her mother in one of the notes released Monday by police. "However, I cannot live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what both you and I have come to regard as this 'modern day lynching,' only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman."

Click here to read the note Palfrey wrote to her mother.

Last month, a federal jury convicted Palfrey of money laundering and racketeering charges in connection to what prosecutors described as a high-end prostitution ring whose clients included members of Washington's political and social elite.

She was awaiting sentencing July 24 and faced a maximum of 55 years in prison, though she was expected to receive a significantly lighter sentence than that.

Click here for photos.

The note was one of two left behind by Palfrey, one addressed to her mother, Blanche Palfrey, and the other to her younger sister Bobbie, according to Tarpon Springs, Fla., police. One bore the instructions: "Do not revive."

Palfrey told her sister to "be strong for mom."

"You must comprehend that there was no other way out, i.e., 'exit strategy,' other than the one I have chosen here," she wrote. "Know I am at peace, with complete certainty, I believe Dad is standing watch — prepared to guide me into the light."

Palfrey was staying at her mother's home in a trailer park in Tarpon Springs, near Tampa, at the time of her death. Authorities said the letters were found by the night stand next to the bed where she had been sleeping.

"Copies have been supplied to the mother and sister, who confirmed that they were written by Deborah," Police Capt. Jeffrey P. Young said in a statement.

Click here to read the note Palfrey wrote to her sister.

Palfrey took her own life Thursday morning in a shed next to her mother's house. Blanche Palfrey, who is 76, discovered her daughter hanging from a metal beam inside the shed and made a frantic call to 911.

The medical examiner has ruled that the cause of death was suicide by hanging; toxicology reports are pending, police said Monday.

Addressing rampant rumors that Palfrey was murdered in an attempt to keep her from revealing more names of her well-known clients, Young said detectives had found no evidence indicating that Palfrey died by any means other than suicide.

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter and former deputy secretary of state Randall L. Tobias both were tied by investigators to Palfrey's business.

She repeatedly denied that the escort service engaged in prostitution, saying that if any of the women performed sex acts for money, they did so without her knowledge.

Prosecutors said she ran the prostitution service for 13 years. The trial concluded without revealing many new details about the company or its clients. Vitter was among possible witnesses, but did not take the stand.

Palfrey had vowed that she would not go to prison, even telling a Washington writer that she would commit suicide first.

[Illuminatus Primus]

So the state drove someone to suicide for outdated Christer moralism delivered by the gavel. And people wonder why reform and legal activists are so often very passionate and aggressive. It may not be obvious or constant, but there are unfair human costs to stupid laws.

[Vendetta]

@Lonestar: Vanilla Coke is the best pop around. It most certainly is not vile. Beer on the other hand is.

It's nice once or twice, but it gets real old, real fast. Chemical aftertaste is nasty.

[MKSheppard]

So the state drove someone to suicide for outdated Christer moralism delivered by the gavel.

I was unaware that racketeering and money laundering charges were "Christer moralism".

[Illuminatus Primus]

So the state drove someone to suicide for outdated Christer moralism delivered by the gavel.

I was unaware that racketeering and money laundering charges were "Christer moralism".

Yes, because selling sex would necessarily include those had the enterprise of organizing prostitution not been illegal.

Not to mention, why don't you exhort your buddy Tom DeLay to hang himself too if money laundering and fraud are so bad.