2007.04.29: April 29, 2007: Headlines: USAID: Crime: International Herald Tribune: Randall Tobias, head of USAID, resigns after being connected to prostitution case
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2007.04.29: April 29, 2007: Headlines: USAID: Crime: International Herald Tribune: Randall Tobias, head of USAID, resigns after being connected to prostitution case
Randall Tobias, head of USAID, resigns after being connected to prostitution case
Randall Tobias, the top foreign aid adviser in the State Department, became the most prominent person on the list to be publicly identified when he resigned after acknowledging to ABC News that he was among Palfrey's clients. The State Department's statement on Tobias's resignation said simply, "He is returning to private life for personal reasons." ABC News reported that Tobias told the network Thursday that he had called Pamela Martin and Associates - Palfrey's business - for massage services, not for sex. Tobias, who was the director of foreign assistance and the administrator of the Agency for International Development, ran agencies that required foreign recipients of AIDS assistance to explicitly condemn prostitution, a policy that drew protests from some nations and relief organizations.
Randall Tobias, head of USAID, resigns after being connected to prostitution case
Randall Tobias, State Department adviser, connected to prostitution case
By Eric Lipton
Published: April 29, 2007
WASHINGTON: Deborah Jeane Palfrey has not been at all shy about it: For more than a decade she ran an escort service that catered to upscale clients in the nation's capital, sending college-educated women to men's homes or hotel rooms.
For about $300, she provided about 90 minutes of what she has described as a discreet "legal high-end erotic fantasy service." But the discreet part is over, after federal authorities charged her with operating a prostitution ring.
"The tentacles of this matter reach far, wide and high into the echelons of power in the United States," Palfrey wrote in a court filing last month, as she prepared to release a list of her clients' telephone numbers and vowed to subpoena her customers - some of whom she described as prominent Washington officials.
It is a defense strategy that had its first casualty Friday.
Randall Tobias, the top foreign aid adviser in the State Department, became the most prominent person on the list to be publicly identified when he resigned after acknowledging to ABC News that he was among Palfrey's clients. The State Department's statement on Tobias's resignation said simply, "He is returning to private life for personal reasons."
ABC News reported that Tobias told the network Thursday that he had called Pamela Martin and Associates - Palfrey's business - for massage services, not for sex.
Tobias, 65, is a former chairman and chief executive of Eli Lilly and of AT&T International. He was chairman of the board of Duke University from 1997 to 2000. He has been a major donor to various Republican campaigns.
Tobias, who was the director of foreign assistance and the administrator of the Agency for International Development, ran agencies that required foreign recipients of AIDS assistance to explicitly condemn prostitution, a policy that drew protests from some nations and relief organizations.
Bush administration officials Saturday declined to comment further. Tobias did not respond to telephone messages left at his home and office Friday and Saturday.
Palfrey's business, which operated from 1993 to 2006, had 15,000 customers and a pool of 130 or so escorts, ranging in age from 23 to 55, who worked as independent contractors, she said in one court filing.
"Best selection and availability before 9 p.m. each evening," one advertisement she ran said.
Over the six years before the business shut down, she collected more than $750,000 from the escorts, with whom she split fees for each call, federal officials said in court filings.
Palfrey, who ran the Washington escort service out of her home in Vallejo, California, was convicted in 1991 of operating an illegal prostitution business in that state and served 18 months in prison, according to federal authorities. She declined through her lawyer to comment on Saturday.
But she has insisted that her business, which she said catered to customers "from the refined walks of life here in the nation's capital," offered only "legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior," like massages or nude dancing.
Federal authorities, who are pressing civil and criminal charges, say they are convinced that her escorts often crossed the line and that Palfrey knew they were working as prostitutes. Officials are trying to seize earnings from her business.
It is Palfrey's defense strategy that is now causing the biggest stir.
She not only intends to identify more of her high-profile clients but has also threatened to call them as witnesses at trial to back up her claim that the services provided never crossed the line to prostitution.
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Headlines: April, 2007; USAID; Crime
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Story Source: International Herald Tribune
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