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7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 Life and trials of DC Madam May 10, 2009
By Reader
"cvrcak1"
It was not that long ago when scandal broke out about Washington, DC Madam Deborah Jeane Plafrey and her escort service. She was in great legal trouble that spanned for almost two years. Her attorney in her civil case, Montgomery Blair Sibley, who was never paid for his services by Ms. Palfrey, documented that experience in his extraordinary book "Why Just Her".
While on the outside, this book may represent to some story about escort services, it is in fact a story about how unjust judiciary process can be for ordinary citizen. Once accused of serious crimes such as conspiracy and rocketeering, Ms. Palfrey's assets were frozen, her property taken away from her. Without any funds she is forced to rely on federal court appointed attorneys, who were not exactly dedicated to looking after her best interests. Her introduction to Mr. Sibley gives her a glimpse on how grossly she is being misrepresented in a court of law. In addition to trumpted up charges and lack of funds, it becomes obvious that Ms. Palfrey has to deal with political maneuverings of her court appointed attorneys and judge's intertia. Is it possible to get justice as a private citizen in a system where federal judges have a job for life, almost limitless discretion and have ambitious attorneys: prosecutors and defence attorneys alike representing cases whose ultimate career plan is to one day become federal judges themselves? Are these attorneys compelled to look after best interests of their clients, or are they taking the paths of least resistance in order not to jeopardise their future political and professional careers?
Book provides plenty of references to law and various cases related to this one. Not being a lawyer I cannot comment on those, but I am sure that lawyers and students of law may find them very intriguing. When is the law the law, and when is the technicality just that? Is it always best to strike a deal, or is it better to fight? For Ms. Palfrey, fight was just too exhausting and ends in her dramatic exit from this world less than a month before her sentencing. The tragedy of this case is so overwhelming that affects even a bystander, reader and observer of the events that took place before, during and after Ms. Palfrey's trial.
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
A real eye-opener! Jun 03, 2009
By D. Roberts
"Hadrian12"
Like most people, I saw the tidbits of this story that Robin Meade divulged on the CNN (HLN) morning show back in 2006. I didn't think too much of the Deborah Jeane Palfrey saga, other than it was kind of strange that the story emerged "out of the blue." At the time, I had no idea all of the political maneuverings which served as the impetus for the government seizing Ms. Palfrey's assets. So.....this book was kind of a long drop down the proverbial rabbit hole into the sordid world where politics meets justice.
Little did I know when I turned the front cover how the Bush Administration / RNC wanted to get their hands on Palfrey's little black book in order to run smear campaigns against Democrat candidates in the 2006 elections. Nor did it occur to me that they were also trying to prevent any Republicans being named in a who's-who of political sex scandals. It's a bit ironic that their plot backfired big time as the biggest 3 fish positively named in her book ended up being Republican big-wigs DoD consultant Harland Ullman, Senator David Vitter & Bush Administration official Randall Tobias. And, of course, the poor Republicans also got trounced in the 2006 elections on top of that!
Obviously, if this had been a book aimed at a "normal" administration, then it would have come across as far-fetched to have the conspiracy theories enveloped within this story. Of course, the Bush administration was no normal administration. Rather, it was an executive branch which was absolutely rotten to the core. With buffoons such as Alberto "Gonzo" Gonzales and Monica Goodling running the Department of Justice, the egregious actions of the DOJ portrayed in this monograph can be seen as simply par-for-the-course. In short, the actions of the DOJ between 2000 & 2008 were utterly disgraceful.
While I always knew that your chances of winning the case were severely enervated with a public defender, I never realized the amount of collusion that PDs have with prosecutors and judges. Nor did I comprehend the degree of apathy that they could hold for their clients. It's horrifying to read how the government not only stacked the deck against Ms. Palfrey to ensure that she was convicted, but they also cherry-picked their cards. In other words, they CHEATED!
Montgomery Blair Sibley gives a credible testimony of his attempts to be the only person in Ms. Palfrey's corner during her arduous ordeal. He is obviously a much more talented lawyer than the other attornies in the book, and he's far more ethical than the politically motivated government investigators and prosecutors depicted in the book. While I've never had a great deal of respect for lawyers, I did come away from the book with admiration for Sibley and his Custer's-last-stand style of litigation.
As I was reading this book, there were a lot of overtones of the obsessive Republican attacks depicted in Inside Deep Throat - Theatrical NC-17 Edition back in the 1970s. My, how little times have changed. One may be for or against legalizing prostitution, but the fact remains that there is a reason that it is called the world's oldest profession. It has been around for tens of thousands of years, and (assuming the human race is still around) it will be here tens of thousands of years from now. The whole conservative agenda to keep the lustful genie in the bottle strikes me as rather silly.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey was certainly not Mother Teresa. On the other hand, she certainly wasn't a terrorist, either. It's sobering to think that Osama bin Laden would have received more due process than Ms. Palfrey did.
Her brand of having an escort service / prostitution service (whatever you wish to call it) was a victimless crime. Some will contend that prostitution exploits women who are in dire straits. While that may be true in some instances, it wasn't the case here. Most of the women working for Ms. Palfrey had college degrees. Some had advanced college degrees. One was a Naval officer and another was a professor at the university of Maryland. No, these were not women in poverty but women who had the intelligence to make up their own minds.
Furthermore, high society prostitutes who were educated, too, have been around for thousands of years. In ancient Greece they were known as the hetairai (Aspasia was the most famous / infamous one). In the middle ages and through the Renaissance, the only caste of women who were educated were the high society courtesans. The excellent movie Dangerous Beauty tells the story of one of them.
Hence, to try and blame the entire tradition of prostitution on Ms. Palfrey is beyond unfair. If you want to prosecute her, fine, but you must also prosecute the women who worked for her. You must also prosecute the men(!) who willfully paid for the services her women offered. You must also go after all of the other escort services (there are dozens in the D.C. area alone). To go after Ms. Palfrey alone is beyond singling her out - it's downright misogyny!
If you want a good hard look at a topic that is sobering in its depiction of the lies, scandals, arrogance, hypocrisy and just plain stupidity of the Bush administration and the DOJ that served under its watch, then this book is worth its weight in gold. The DOJ is SUPPOSED to be the most non-partisan segment of society. Instead, the Bush administration liked to wield it like a Scottish broadsword to take down political enemies. If nefarious actions such as these are not reprehensible, I don't know what is. Sadly, Ms. Palfrey ended up being a sort of sacrificial lamb on the alter of Bush 43 political hubris.
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Book Trailer Apr 30, 2009
By Montgomery Sibley
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1W28DNH2UMT2D Watch the Book Trailer
4 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Why Just Her Apr 29, 2009
By riverbend
I finished the book and my reaction was (and is) wow! Simply put, you did a nice job of telling the story, and one that many readers will recognize as such. I can't comment on the substance of the legal aspect, arguments, rules, pleadings, etc., however, I found them understandable, and more importantly plausible.
It is easy to comprehend why so few cases go to trial, and what power the government retains when they do. And it is clear, by way of this story, that this power can and is used in ways that our founding fathers did not intend.
I'll read all or parts of the book again in the coming weeks, and keep my eyes and ears open for news of your travels across this American landscape as you tell this story to our fellow citizens. Go with good fortune, and know that you have already fought a great fight.
3 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A lawyer's fascinating inside story of the D. C. Madam Jul 22, 2009
By Kay
Washington attorney Montgomery Sibley details the inside story of the D. C. Madam in "Why Just Her." His account is a fascinating story of the selective prosecution and death of Deborah Jeane Palfrey who achieved unwanted fame after her arrest as the operator of an escort agency in Washington, D.C. Although she contended her services were legal, in 2008 she was convicted of racketeering, using the mail for illegal purposes, and money laundering. These charges seem strangely excessive for the owner of an upscale escort service which from all accounts valued anonymity. Many of her clients were rumored to be national politicians, including many conservatives who often defended the sanctity of marriage. Following her arrest we thought we might get a look at her client list, but strangely it was never made available. While I don't generally subscribe to conspiracy theories, Sibley certainly makes a case for one as he traces Palfrey's prosecution through many twists and turns of the legal system. The book also offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of the Washington Power elite whose personal lives differ markedly from their public presentations and the rest of us.
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