Three of the Most Scandalous Political Prostitution Ring Cases | The Odyssey Online
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Politics and Activism

Three of the Most Scandalous Political Prostitution Ring Cases

Everyone loves a juicy sex scandal news story.

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Three of the Most Scandalous Political Prostitution Ring Cases
Daily News New York

Everyone loves a juicy sex scandal news story, so here is a list of some of the most notorious high-end sex clubs, the madams behind the curtains and the exposed details that you probably will not believe:

Davis Investments- Davis Investments was headed by the infamous Kristin Davis, a former legitimate hedge-fund-manager-turned-madam because it was the “economics of sex" that interested her—even after spending four months on Riker's Island for a prostitution charge. Davis once said that she liked the idea that sex was the only industry where women would make more money than men.


Kristin M. Davis

Davis offered her services to about 20,000 men, including several high-profile clients such as: Alex Rodriguez, David Beckham, the vice president of NBC universal and many investment bankers from Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch. Davis had about 120 women working for her in five different cities. Davis stated that her clients would often use their corporate credit cards to pay for her services. Around 40-50% of her high-end escort services were purchased by Wall Street, Davis explained in the documentary, Inside Job. The service charges were often masked as computer repairs, trading research, consulting for market compliance and so on.

One of the most famous clients of Davis Investments was 49-year-old former New York Governor and Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, who at the time was married with three kids. Spitzer was famously known as “Client #9" (referring to Davis's little black book) and in 2013, was known to frequently stir up problems with women that starting complaining about his aggressiveness. Spitzer was eventually blacklisted from her agency for his violent behavior towards her staff.


Eliot Spitzer

Davis claimed that she provided prostitutes to Dominque Strauss-Kahn, the controversial former managing director of the International Monetary Fund and a French politician. Strauss-Kahn commonly hired multiple prostitutes at a time for “sex parties" in fancy hotels all over the world. So yes, the man in charge of the entire world's money was spending his income on hookers.


Dominque Strauss-Kahn

Davis unsuccessfully ran for governor of New York in 2010 on an independent campaign (shocking she did not win) before she turned herself in and headed to prison for a two-year sentence. When she was accused of orchestrating a prostitution ring, she offered her client list to NY authorities but they did not want to see it. Suspicious, right?

She currently has a prison blog that she writes on to “help other women heading to prison know what to expect and how to get through," and plans to open a shelter that would house victims of sex-trafficking. You can even send Davis money through her Western Union account information that is posted on her website.

Emperors VIP Club- Based in New York City and founded by Mark Brener and Cecil Suwal, Emperors VIP Club used a swanky website to offer their services and a company named QAT Consulting Group as their cover.


Mark Brener and Cecil Suwal

The escorts of the Emperors VIP Club were rated on a three to seven “diamond scale" based on their appearance. So the more attractive the escort was, the more diamonds she would have and the more she would cost. A seven diamond escort could cost up to $31,000 a day or $5,500 an hour. The youngest escort that was advertised on their website before it was taken down was 19 years old.

The United Kingdom's 3rd wealthiest man, the Duke of Westminster, was accused of being involved with Emperors Club VIP by the escort Zana Brazdek. The most famous club member, and also the one that took them down through a federal investigation, was Elliot Spitzer.


Duke of West Minster

Zana Brazdek

One of the most famous prostitutes involved with Spitzer was a woman named Ashley Dupre. Dupre allegedly lied about being a runaway from a broken home, while her real family was supportive and wealthy. Before she was caught sleeping with a U.S. governor for money, she was accused of using a stolen I.D. to appear on a Girls Gone Wild episode. Dupre responded to an ad about the Emperors VIP Club and started to work there eventually getting paid $1000 an hour for sex.


Ashley Dupre

Dupre met with Spitzer in 2008 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC. The arrangements were made by phone between Spitzer and a booker at Emperors Club VIP. The calls were monitored by federal investigators who had initiated a wiretap after Spitzer's bank had filed a suspicious activity report regarding money transfers to a front company operated by the escort service. Dupre's mother said she was not sure that Ashley had even realized who Mr. Spitzer was when he was her client. Spitzer reportedly spent $80,000 total on prostitutes over two years and eventually resigned from his position once the media exposed the scandal.

The agency was shut down in 2008 when federal agents investigated suspicious money transfers from Spitzer's account.

Dupre went on to be a sex columnist for the New York Times and became a one-hit-wonder singer. Spitzer is currently being investigated by the NYPD after allegedly assaulting a Russian woman named Svetlana Travis at the Plaza Hotel.

Pamela Martin and Associates- This ring was run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, otherwise known as the D.C. Madam. Palfrey had a bachelor degree in criminal justice and became involved with a small escort business while working as a paralegal in San Diego. She was appalled at the way things were run and rejected the widespread drug use within the sex industry so she started her own service.


Deborah Jeane Palfrey

Palfrey was then arrested in 1990 on charges of pimping, pandering and extortion. When she fled to Montana, she was captured while trying to cross Canadian border and brought back for trial. She was convicted two years later and spent 18 months in prison. After her release, she founded Pamela Martin and Associates. She claimed to have gone back into the sex business due to limited options as a felon.

Palfrey chose D.C. to base her company in because she thought it would be filled with lonely men that were separated from their families during the week and women that were educated and ambitious.

At Pamela Martin and Associates, the escorts charged $300 an hour and they had to have a day job, be over 23 and dress in proper and classy clothing. At a point in time, Palfrey demanded half of the escort's hourly rate.

She had 10,000 to 15,000 phone numbers of clients, one of whom was an Arab prince. Other clients of hers were former Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias and Pentagon Adviser and author Harlan K. Ullman.

Palfrey was eventually caught from undercover agents and accused of money laundering and prostitution. She had the same lawyer as Monica Lewinsky. During her trial, 13 former escorts and three former clients testified against her so that they could be granted immunity from their own charges.

As part of her legal defense, Palfrey's lawyers said they would expose the service's client list, one of which was family-value preaching U.S. Senator David Vitter. Vitter issued a public apology for his "very serious sin," and later managed to retain his seat in the Senate.


Senator David Vittor

Not all the names or records she had were exposed, there were at least 100 more names worth knowing but she insinuated that the news network she was working with had bowed to pressure from the government and withheld the names.

In April 2008, when Palfrey was convicted, she faced a maximum of 55 years in prison. A month later, she was found dead from hanging herself in a storage unit in Tarpon Springs.

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