DC Madam Charges Dismissed

In an interesting twist, the NY Daily News reports the charges against Deborah Palfrey, aka the DC Madam, have been dismissed.

As the WaPo explained in the wake of Palfrey's death: "It is standard practice for authorities to file an 'abatement of prosecution' motion with a court if a defendant dies before the end of a criminal proceeding. Palfrey's case had not ended because her sentencing was pending and she had filed a notice that she planned to appeal her conviction."

My Salon story on Palfrey: "Death and the D.C. Madam."

Death and the D.C. Madam [Updated]

Late last week, after Deborah Jeane Palfrey, aka "the D.C. Madam," killed herself, an editor at Salon contacted me and asked if I would write a story on the subject. That story, "Death and the D.C. Madam," is now online. Special thanks to Melissa Gira, Bree Daniels, and the Anonymous Call Girl for letting me interview you. If you'd like to hear more from working girls and johns in their own words, you can visit my related project: Letters from Working Girls & Letters from Johns.

Update: Details of Palfrey's suicide notes released. [via Radar]

On May 1, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, better known as "the D.C. Madam," was found dead in a shed located behind her mother's Tarpon Springs, Fla., mobile home. Apparently, Palfrey, 52, hanged herself from a metal beam with a length of nylon rope. When her 76-year-old mother, Blanche Palfrey, called 911 just before 11 a.m., the emergency operator asked if her daughter was still hanging from the rafter. "Yes," said the madam's weeping mother, who had regularly accompanied her daughter to court the month previous, "I can't move her. I'm 76 years old."