My immediate question about those phone records of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called ‘DC madam,’ was what if any interruption of business they would show for September 11, 2001. Results, judging from a quick search, predictable: little activity on 9/11 itself, then business roaring back to full steam ahead by the following week, then on to super revived activity the second weekend afterward, after the Stock Market had reopened, military and security contractors were ginning up, and we’re open for war, I mean business. 

First, though, Ms. Palfrey had her own domestic business to take care of. Only 3 calls are indicated on Palfrey’s phone records for Sept 11, 2001, which makes sense.

Summarizing from my notes:

One call to a 386-area code number: turns out to be a realtor; Palfrey had a property (a house) listed, in Deltona FL. Realtor says “Jean Palfrey” – realtor didn’t know about the e on the end, also didn’t realize that this was the “DC madam” – “had a very strange air about her,” slim “but thick at the same time – thick legs”; characterized at dif times in discussion as “very determined,” “wanting what she wanted,” also “a snotty, snippety little thing.”

[Talking to a realtor, for a journalist, is better than finding papers accidentally left in the Xerox machine. The only problem is that, like finding docs left by an attorney in the courthouse copier, it’s too much like shooting fish in a barrel. But I love realtors, I love them like candy.]  

Realtor points out that Ms. Palfrey also had tenants in the house that she was trying to get rid of – so she cd sell it-- and so she, Palfrey would also have been making calls to the tenants, in the same area code. Also she first called a broker, Charles M. Barry, in De Land FL, to find a realtor and that’s how she got me [this particular realtor]. Palfrey was based in California.

Realtor looks Palfrey up on the web, checks photographs after checking out verbal description on the phone -- yes it’s the same one – “my own jean palfrey” – she “wasn’t real flashy”; sure enough, the woman who listed w/ her.

Palfrey called the realtor on both September 11 and September 12, 2001, but the realtor says it had nothing to do with 9/11; Palfrey was already working on selling the house. – Apparently it was to be listed on September 11, but by coincidence a tenant’s father died that day – had slipped and fallen, died – so she, Palfrey, w/ heart, said hold off listing until tomorrow - she called. She was “very demanding.” After the listing, “She said it’s been wonderful working w/ you, M.J.” – “I cdnt say it was wonderful working w/ her, because it was not.” – Her address was in Ventura CA. – The house, listed on September 12, 2001, sold in February 2002; Palfrey made a profit on the sale, but only about $30K on it. Interestingly, old docs remind the realtor that when Ms. Palfrey bought the Deltona property, in 1998, “she paid all cash” for it ($50K), thru a trust – She said she just wanted to get rid of it; realtor thinks that was true. Volusia County tax records show the address as 235 Steward Terrace, in Deltona. 

We already know that Bernard Kerik, bodyguard and driver and security expert for then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, used an apartment donated for weary emergency services responders for some of his trysts – including assignations with a publisher from Regnery, well-funded purveyor of rightwing trash books. So it comes as little surprise that Ms. Palfrey’s clientele, known according to Internet reviews as Republican, were over-all not too broken up by 9/11 to disrupt their other activities much.

Still, the phone records for 2001 look interesting. For the record, it must be emphasized here that the two premier concerns for any journalist, looking at these records, should be those of most importance for the public: 1) potential breach of security; and 2) potential conflict of interest. Hypocrisy is of secondary importance – although admittedly the Bush team’s smarmy effort to ‘re-stigmatize’ more human actions cd magnify security problems: the more blackmailable you make your personnel, the more malleable they may become to pressures inimical to the public interest. It’s not good to see blackmailable individuals knifed or manipulated even in the private sector, much less in government, or in that huge area where the private and public sectors overlap – government contracting.

On September 11, one of Ms. Palfrey’s calls was the realtor; one was to her toll-free service, which she frequently called. The third was to a law firm in the 407 area code in Winter Park, Florida, where apparently Ms. Palfrey had a cluster of clients. (Speaking of law, Deborah Jeane Palfrey had graduated from Rollins College, in Winter Park, with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.)

One of the firm’s partners, calling back promptly in response to an emailed question, confirms that his firm has had the phone number since 1991. Ms. Palfrey’s phone records show a 3-minute call placed to the law firm at 2:44 p.m. on September 11, 2001. Short calls were placed to the number over the year; a quick search turns up the same number on Thursday December 28, 2000 (3 calls); Monday January 8 and 22 and Friday January 26, 2001; Friday February 2 and Tuesday February 20, 2001 (twice each); Tuesday March 13; Tuesday May 15; Monday August 27 (twice); and September 4, 5, 6, and 11, 2001. Then a little hiatus until Monday November 5, 2001.

An attorney from the firm, calling back in the late afternoon, confirms that he represented Ms. Palfrey but is not free to discuss what her representation was about without her permission.
"I remember her vaguely," he says; "What made her come up on your radar screen?"

Looking on the bright side, the Bush administration should have an even harder time generating war against Iran now, with these phone records available.