If only a few of them decided, only a few times, to turn a trick at the end of the party, Palfrey is toast.  From the start, this seemed to be very much a "less-than-zero sum game."  One play-for-pay by any lady & Palfrey would be down for the count.

so no, unless everyone on her list is being granted immunity to testify, i just don't see jeralyn's scenario playing out. further, they would then have to testify that they contacted her, knowing that she ran a prostitution ring. in the absence of concrete evidence to support that assertion, the government has a "he said, she said" case.

what someone thinks, vs what is, or what someone else thinks, isn't automatically mutually inclusive, regardless of what some prosecutor may say to the contrary.

personally, i see this case going nowhere, fast. the only reason this is even in the news at all is because of the publicity guaranteed, not because it's, to paraphrase george tenet, "a slam dunk case".

that said, i will offer one caveat. . .
as to her outside-the-court-room strategy. . .

[and i will pay homage to denzel
washington's trial lawyer character
in "philadelphia" for this great line:

"here in the court-room, justice wears
a blind-fold -- she is blind. . .  but, now out
there -- out on the streets, the b!tch has eyes. . ."]

so, no one here is saying it, directly -- but
anyone with "eyes" -- street eyes,
that is -- knows this. . . she is actively
building her legal defense fund, accepting
money, "on the sneak", from clientele too
afraid to see their names made public,
and from those with the means to buy her silence. . .  
but what if the government
flips the script on these jokers?

My conclusion was more along the lines that someone got to ABC.  That, or they just wanted to re-prove their Repug bona fides, which suffered so badly for breaking the Feeley Foley story last fall, after having done such a masterful whack-job on the Clintons with "Path to 9/11".

Here's why I say what I do:
1.  Ross held up the phone records, someone intoned there were all sorts of CEOs, lobbyists, etc. on them, and the Ross declared it "not newsworthy".
  Now, ask yourself and be honest - if the names were Democrats, do you think for a second it would be "not newsworthy"?

2.  The "not newsworthy" statement came after telling
   
3.  They spent a lot of time on the unfortunate case of one of the women - a U. Md. professor who wanted to make a little extra money to supplement her allegedly-meager salary, wound up getting busted and publicly humiliated so badly that she killed herself.
   
4.  They also had on a sociologist or some "expert" on the sex trade, who said (A) the men are more predators than victims, (B) the women are the ones who always take the hit while the men slip back into the respectable shadows.
   
5.  As to every one of those outcalls which crossed a state line (and, since this is a federal case, that means "all" of them) the man is on the hook for violating the Mann Act. You know, causing a woman to be transported across state lines for an immoral purpose.  Five years exposure.  Yet, Palfrey says she offered to flip and the feds were absolutely not interested.
   
6.  I recall the USA for the D.C. is a so-called interim replacement.  He is also close to the woma who's head of the criminal division, someone routinely reviled as a political hack - who herself was installed just before the Abramoff case suddenly stopped boiling.

1.  The USA for D.C. is not going to prosecute the men.
   
2.  The government, knowing the identities of her customers (they gave her the phone records in discovery), is going to use that information (by having it) to keep those repugs' named in line and loyal.
   
3.  The message to women is "you're expendable and powerless" (or something similarly denigrating) - a perfectly Repug attitude.  (I heard once that "Republicans are the men who hate women and the women who need them for that."  This fits the bill.)
   
4.  By blowing up Palfrey, the Repugs get to show their religious base they're still on board.  Scarlet woman gets hers and all that.
   
5.  All copies of those phone records will be destroyed before the next administration.  By accident, of course.
   
6.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of the customers were involved with Abramoff.

I take it that Palfry is exposing the hypocrisy of Washington. The first name to be scandalized was the name of the Aids Czar, Abstinence Only, No Illegal Sex message bearer, Randall Tobias.
Was this a coincidence? I personally doubt it was.

Is there a possibility that if Palfry is incarcerated she would not be able to $ell the rights to her story? Is it possible that her $tory, which could bring in lots of revenue, could be generated by someone else not legally bound?

Now let me pose this question: Is it possible that Palfry knows that she is not going to win so, before she becomes incarcerated she is trying to bank as much as possible?

She's said she had to pay for her legal fees. Couldn't this one time opportunity enrich several people at the same time?

jeralyn, do you seriously think these guys are going to get on a witness stand, under oath, in public, and say "why yes, i did pay for sex with these women." if you truly think that, you are truly deluded.

ms. palfrey has them, and the gov't, by the proverbial short hairs. they were incredibly stupid to even start this. now, they have to figure out a semi-graceful way of getting out of it, without it totally blowing up in their collective, smug faces.

with respect to harlan ullman, and his lawyer, they're both full of it. when push comes to shove, they'll back up so fast, their asses will bounce off the wall.