Building Manager: DC Madam's Death Not Suicide

[FourScore]

Building Manager: DC Madam's Death Not Suicide

POSTED: 8:54 pm EDT May 2, 2008
UPDATED: 9:27 pm EDT May 2, 2008


ORLANDO, Fla. -- The building manager of a Central Florida condo said he spent time talking to Deborah Jean Palfrey on Monday as she packed to go to her mother's house and she did not seem suicidal.

Deborah Jean Palfrey has many ties to Central Florida. For the past 12 years she's owned a condo at Park Lake Towers in Orlando.

The building manager, who did not want to show his face, talked with Palfrey Monday before she left for her mother's in Tarpon Springs. He strongly believes Palfrey's death was not a suicide.

"Jean Palfrey was a class act. She wore very good clothes. She was well educated. Her way out of this world certainly would not have been in an aluminum shed attached to a mobile home in Tarpon Springs, Florida," he said...

SNIP

...Palfrey’s building manager said she often told him she believed she was being followed and he thinks there may have been some former clients of her escort service who wanted her dead.

"She insinuated that there is a contract out for her and I fully believe they succeeded," her building manager said.

Palfrey's Lexus is still parked in the Park Lake garage and the staff said on Monday, she asked about making sure her condo fees would continue to be paid during what Palfrey anticipated would be six years in prison.

They said she left that day with some suitcases and a box.

"She had one white paper file box that she told me had some important paper with her and then she just kind of raised her eyebrows like you're supposed to think oh yeah, that's all the information that she had on her business in Washington," her building manager said...

http://www.wesh.com/news/16142638/detail.html

[rurallib]

1. Any idea if there will be any kind of an investigation?

[Richard Steele]

2. I'm sure this surprises no one. K&R

[Bluzmann57]

3. "...not suicide".

Who didn't see this one coming? Yep, it certainly was not a suicide despite all the evidence pointing to a suicide. Oh well, I guess Hillary had Vince Foster killed as well. Oh wait, there is evidence proving otherwise? Never mind.
People involved in crime are often paranoid. It seems that the DC Madam was paranoid too.

[Sparkly]

4. "People involved in crime..."

I think this is a very different situation from Vince Foster. :shrug:

[Bluzmann57]

5. I'm just tired of EVERYTHING being a conspiracy

Sometimes things happen and people need to understand that. And fyi, prostitution is a crime, whether one wants to admit it or not. Ah...forget it. I guess the conspiracy people will believe what they want no matter what.

[JDPriestly]

10. Prostitution is not a federal crime.

Apparently, Palfrey was not convicted of prostitution.

"Channing Phillips, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor, tells WTOP typically in cases in which a defendant is convicted but dies before sentencing, prosecutors file a motion to abate the prosecution, along with a notice of suggestion of death, which results in court records of the conviction being vacated.
. . . .
"Palfrey was convicted on April 15 of racketeering and money laundering charges for running a prostitution ring that catered to Washington's elite, including Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), former senior State Department official Randall Tobias, and military strategist Harlan Ullman.

. . . .

"After Palfrey was convicted, prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge James Robertson to immediately put Palfrey behind bars, arguing that the verdict was a motive for her to flee. Judge Robertson denied the request, noting that Palfrey has never missed a court appearance.

"The trial was the first time federal prosecutors in D.C. used federal racketeering statutes in a prostitution case."

http://www.wtop.com/?sid=1396668&nid=25

Also, as with Kenneth Lay, because she died before sentencing, technically, her conviction is as though voided.

"Lay is also no longer a criminal. It is a little known quirk of the law that a defendant who dies between conviction and sentencing is no longer guilty, at least on paper. "You're not technically convicted till after you're sentenced," explains Danny Onorato, former federal prosecutor and partner in the D.C. criminal defense firm of Schertler & Onorato. "So although he was convicted by a jury, he technically has no criminal record." You could argue that Lay had exquisite timing, muses Onorato. "You could also argue," he concludes, "that the prosecutor gave him the death penalty."

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/07/06/lay/

If she committed suicide, it may have been to avoid the conviction on her record. The government seized her assets quite some time ago.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_502489.html

I do not know, but wonder whether her suicide and the vacating of her conviction will affect the government's ability to keep those assets or to enforce penalties against her estate.

[Supersedeas]

11. you mean that Vince Foster and Palfrey are unrelated

[Hidden Stillness]

6. Chilling; and Absurd to Claim it was a Suicide

It was highly unlikely that this was a suicide; it did not even make any sense as a suicide. She had been fighting this case for all this time, but now all of a sudden, she is so fragile she cannot take it any more; she was facing minimal prison time, had actually been in prison before, and had so many aces up her sleeve, with the promise of cooperation and, oh yes, she was just about to spill the beans and name a lot of names....

Everyone knows about Republican Senator Vitter of Louisiana ("strangely enough" still in the Senate, even though it is supposed to be "against the law"), but there is supposed to be a huge number of others--in Congress, the Bush Admin., in the Homeland Security Dept., etc., etc., and they were going to be named. This story was covered on Nancy Grace, (none of the "liberal males" bothered, I don't think), and to her credit, she also finds it highly suspicious. The idea that a woman would commit suicide by hanging herself was so bizarre and rare, that no guest on the program could think of another example of it; it is common as a way of murder. The timing is the most plausible evidence for murder, not for suicide, as the time facing her was minimal and there was no sign that this would even be the end of the appeals and negotiations, etc. It was, however, only a few days away from the time when she was going to start naming names publicly.

[allthatjazz]

8. Very well said

You said exactly what I was thinking (only could never write it that well)

[goldcanyonaz]

7. Are we the only ones covering this?

[DLnyc]

9. Smells like a cover-up.

Reminds me of the time, back in that other century, with that Nixon guy . . . wasn't it the cover-up that finally did hm in?

Maybe someone should be checking unusual phone calls and cash withdrawals of a certain sadistic bastard who likes to shoot lawyers and invade countries (and whose name was reportedly on the list).