Here is an email from Ms. Palfrey. There is a lot of confusion from the public on her case. The government filed two cases against her: civil and criminal. Ms. Palfrey provides the entire background of her case in her own words:
Background:
I owned and operated “Pamela Martin & Associates”, an upscale adult fantasy service, which operated in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area (including the Maryland and Virginia suburbs), for 13 years, from late 1993 thru early August of 2006, without incident and without arrest. The women in my employ were all age 23 to 25 and up (many were in their 40’s and 50’s), with two or more years of college education (many had undergraduate and graduate degrees), who either worked and/or went to school in the daytime. The business was opened each evening from 5pm to 11pm/midnight, seven nights a week. It operated as a sole proprietorship. Taxes were paid accordingly each quarter and returns filed every April. Each of the applicable women received 1099’s every January. During the entire tenure of operation, I never once was audited nor questioned by the Internal Revenue Service. My case(s) is not tax related. Wanting to retire since as early as 2002, I finally did so last August. My decision was based on nothing more than a personal desire simply to “move on”. I placed my home on the market and made plans to purchase a small flat in Germany (100,000 euros or approximately 125,000 dollars) and relocate to Europe.
The Civil Case:
On October 4, 2006, the U.S. Department of Treasury seized my entire life’s savings (approximately 1.5 million in real estate, portfolio and bank accounts, along with a coin collection), via the civil asset forfeiture process http://256.com/gray/presume/3.html. Subsequently, a search warrant was executed on my home in Northern California the same day based on evidence – 3 to 3 ½ to 5 years old - obtained from confidential informants, some ten months earlier in December of 2005. The information gleaned from five different former contractors was vague and lacked any semblance of specificity. Each statement – only a few general sentences in length - was written in third person by Postal Inspector Maria E. Couvillon. All of these rather short paragraphs failed to spell out in any substantive detail actual dates, times, places and participants, in the alleged crimes of prostitution.
At the time, I was in Germany closing escrow on the aforementioned flat; I had no idea whatsoever of the goings-on stateside, until I attempted to open an online Charles Schwab brokerage account the afternoon of the 4th and was unsuccessful. Interestingly, the day before on Tuesday, October 3rd, U.S. Postal Inspector’s Joe Clark and Maria E. Couvillon attempted to gain access to my residence under false pretenses posing as “a couple being transferred from the D.C. area to San Francisco”. They tried to get my then real estate agent to show the property to them. After several failed pleas, “Joe and Maria” were convinced such was not possible, since my agent did not have a key (I would not allow the property to be shown without my presence). Early the next morning at 8am, - according to newspaper accounts - twelve federal agents stormed my home and stayed for some four hours, using the stale search warrant as justification.
· Law enforcement’s need to terrorize defenseless women, who are involved in the benign adult service and/or escort industry with strong-arm tactics is well documented in the Washington D.C.- Baltimore corridor and throughout the country. A perfect case in point is that of former Baltimore professor and Pamela Martin & Associates subcontractor Brandy Britton http://www.examiner.com/a-357815~Sex__lies___a_Ph_D_.html. “I counted 11 officers at one point,” Britton says. “They were armed. Their faces were covered. They had automatic weapons, and they were shouting, ‘Down! Clear!’ They dumped out every drawer, everywhere. I was visibly shaken because there were 10 guys with machine guns. “They started taking dishes and just throwing them on the floor and destroying them. They said, ‘Are you going to tell us that you’re a prostitute?’ I said, ‘I’m not, and I want an attorney.’ ”
Not understanding what was happening to me and fully believing there was an arrest warrant waiting for me upon my return to the United States, I nonetheless boarded a plane for my scheduled return flight on October 10, 2006. Fortunately at this juncture, it was only my property – real and personal – which had been arrested.
· It is important to note though prior to my departure on Tuesday, October 10th to the U.S., I was contacted two days earlier on Sunday totally out of the blue, by Bill Bastone, Editor of www.TheSmokingGun.com and asked in an email correspondence, if I would be interested in knowing something about my case. Completely ignorant of any facts at the time, I quickly jumped at the opportunity to learn anything I could about what was occurring to me. We made arrangements to speak by phone long-distance on Monday morning. After a few niceties, Bastone began what I only can describe as a rabid prosecutorial interrogation of me, belittling, humiliating and demeaning me about the nature of my business and the content of my character. He made leading inquiries into a variety of matters including the importance of my client base – including specific questions regarding former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham – and the existence of a traditional “little black book”. Having rattled my already fragile state of mind, the conversation thankfully ended after about 20 or so minutes. Within a matter of hours the interview appeared on TSG website, along with a copy of the unsigned search warrant http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1009061hook1.html. I have been told repeatedly on good authority that Bastone, as a private citizen could not have obtained a copy of the warrant without it first having been signed, recorded and filed. Without doubt, the warrant was leaked to Bastone, for the purpose (I must assume) to embarrass me as much as feasibly possible, under the circumstances and for no other reason.
· It is of equal importance to mention that according to the uploaded and unsigned search warrant posted on The Smoking Gun website on October 9th, I had been under investigation, for approximately 2 ½ years, from May/June of 2004 thru September/October of 2006. What is interesting to note is there appears to have been no investigation into prostitution-related activities during this rather lengthy period (to be discussed in greater detail in subsequent mailings). It seems instead of conducting a proactive investigation at any point in this 28 plus month timeframe, the Government simply watched me. For what? I do not know. As of this writing, I can state without equivocation this is indeed the $64,000 riddle. Nonetheless, what was a languid and seemingly stagnant investigation went into warp mode on September 29, 2006, the day after I wired a little less than $70,000 to my attorney (escrow agent) in Germany, on September 28, 2006, in anticipation of the property purchase. At this stage, I must surmise that the innocuous wire was picked up by the Bush Administration’s ‘Terrorist Finance Tracking Program’ and relayed onto the applicable surveillance agencies, in my case http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Judge_gives_goahead_to_lawsuit_against_0619.html. By the following Tuesday, October 3, Postal Agents Joe Clark and Maria E. Couvillon, aka “Joe and Maria” were at my home in Vallejo, CA attempting to gain entry under false pretenses, as potential buyers.
TO BE CONTINUED
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