Why Just Her
The Judicial Lynching of the D.C. Madam
Deborah Jeane Palfrey
A Book by Montgomery Sibley











CHAPTER XX
December 2007
 “Right now I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself!”
Dak Ralter
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
   
The December 14, 2007, Hearing

On December 3, 2007, shortly after taking over Jeane’s case, Judge Robertson set a status hearing for December 14, 2007, to allow him to get up to speed on the case and understand what issues were outstanding.

* * *

However, this first ruling was nothing compared to what happened next which was the most startling thing I had ever heard in 25 years of practicing law.

Judge Robertson then continued:

THE COURT: Now, the next part of this -- the next thing I want to turn to is the subpoenas duces tecum that the defense is issuing. And these are being issued ex parte, and the defense is entitled to some protection of its own about who it's subpoenaing, but Mr. Sibley, I have to tell you that I have received inquiries from two or three of the persons and institutions that you've served, and then there is one motion to quash that I think everybody is aware of – two motions to quash. Well, the so-called omnibus motion I have not received. When did you file that? (Emphasis added).

MS. CONNELLY: Your Honor, it was filed yesterday morning at 11:30. I have a stamped copy.

THE COURT: You guys, you know, all we need to do is to have a court hearing and paper starts coming in over the transom.

MS. CONNELLY: Well, Your Honor, I think as I noted in the motion when you get it, we didn't receive the court order regarding the issuance of the subpoenas. We had no notice of the subpoenas until the agencies started contacting us, so we put together a response this week and filed it yesterday. We had filed, I think the previous day, the motion to quash based on one of the agencies. I do have a stamped copy I'm happy to provide to the Court if it hasn't made its way to the Court as of yet.

THE COURT: Well, why don't you hum the first few bars.

MS. CONNELLY: Your Honor, it's a motion -- it was filed under seal. I'm happy to discuss it in open court. We filed it under seal because the order was in fact under seal, That sort of predated this motion. But what happened was the government started getting phone calls, as it sounds like the Court did, from various federal agencies, not law enforcement and not investigative agencies, but a number of federal agencies that received subpoenas. (Emphasis added).

THE COURT: Why was this all under seal? I am struggling, frankly, with the amount of material in this case that is under seal, and what's under seal and what's not under seal and what's ex parte and what's not ex parte. Why was this – I’m looking at the memorandum opinion that Judge Kessler issued on November 13th, which is under seal. Maybe you can explain to me why it's under seal.

MS. CONNELLY: We never received it, Your Honor. It was under seal and ex parte, so I certainly can’t explain to you why it was under seal. Our first notice of it was when agencies were subpoenaed, and pursuant to the order, that order was attached to the subpoena. So when the agencies provided us with the subpoenas they received, they attached the order. So I have no basis to explain to the Court why it was under seal. Our motion to quash was under seal only because it seemed that the Court had seen fit to issue that order under seal. So we're perfectly happy to have this issue not under seal and discussed publicly, but out of an abundance of caution we were sort of following what the Court had established with that November 13th order.

THE COURT: Well, Mr. Sibley, the sealing privilege in federal courts is complex, but you know what they used to say when we were kids about a secret: If you tell two people, it's not a secret any longer. And you've issued a whole lot of subpoenas to a whole lot of people. You can't expect this to remain under seal. Do you have any reason to want to continue the seal on this whole issue?

MR. SIBLEY: Your Honor, I would ask the privilege of approaching the Court and answering that question ex parte.

THE COURT: 1'll hear you at the bench.

(Whereupon, an EX PARTE BENCH CONFERENCE was held on the record, transcribed under separate cover.)

(END BENCH CONFERENCE.)

THE COURT: The government’s omnibus motion to quash was filed yesterday; there is another motion to quash that was filed a day or two ago. Mr. Sibley points out, quite correctly, that he hasn't really had an opportunity to respond to them yet. I think the right thing to do is to pass that issue. But, but a number of the subpoenas that have been issued have been issued returnable tomorrow.

MR. SIBLEY: Correct, Your Honor. It was an odd date, but. . .

THE COURT: I don't know what kind of an order you would call a temporary quashal order, but I'm quashing all of the subpoenas until we get an opportunity to decide on the government's motion to quash. So it's a quash without prejudice. The subpoenas remain in effect, but the return date is off. (Emphasis added).

MS. CONNELLY: Your Honor, if I could just seek clarification on one issue, which in fact is in our under seal motion, although this subpoena was not pursuant to the Court's November 13th under seal order. The defendant also issued a subpoena on the White House with a return date of February 19th, which never was, in fact, the trial date in this case. The Court set the trial date as April, with a potential backup date of February if Judge Kessler could fit us in in February. The government's omnibus motion addresses that White House subpoena, but I would like to be able to let them know, is that also being temporarily quashed at this point? (Emphasis added).

THE COURT: Yes, everything is temporarily quashed until I look at your omnibus motion. And while we're talking about trial dates, I'm not even going to be in the jurisdiction in February. The April 7th date that Judge Kessler set is the trial date, as far as I'm concerned. There's no wiggle room on that. We're set for trial on April 7th.

To put into proper context Judge Robertson’s candid admission that he had “received inquiries from two or three of the persons and institutions that you've served” with the subpoenas is very difficult. It was highly improper for the Court to take those inquiries, for who knows what was said soto voce to Judge Robertson. These “persons and institutions” represented the highest, most secret, entities in the World: the office of the President of the United States and the intelligence agencies that monitor and direct the domestic and foreign policy of the world’s largest super-power. Each of these “persons and institutions” was now being called by a superior authority – the Sixth Amendment right of a criminal defendant to have a “compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor” to answer those subpoenas. Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States is there provision for refusing to respond to such a subpoena.

Hence, it was no surprise that these “persons and institutions” were calling Judge Robertson directly rather than engaging in the proper procedure of filing a motion to quash the subpoenas. The procedure for filing public motions, with portions sealed because of national security concerns, might have been justified. However, the proper procedure required that the motion be disclosed to Jeane and me before Judge Robertson made up his mind in order to have the right to quash the subpoenas adjudicated by an impartial jurist.

Moreover, it was wildly improper for Judge Robertson to suppress the subpoenas when Judge Kessler had authorized them only weeks before. The appearance of impropriety occasioned by the Thanksgiving Massacre  (the questionable removal of Judge Kessler from the case, followed by the ex parte communications by “persons and institutions” unknown to Judge Robertson, and the good Judge’s immediate quashing of the subpoenas) was unmistakable.

To my mind, it was clear: The fix was in.

December 14, 2007 - Part II

Something curious, however, had happened the morning that I was at court with Judge Robertson. One of the subpoenas authorized by Judge Kessler had been answered, with startling information.

Among the subpoenas that Judge Kessler had authorized in November was a subpoena to Verizon Wireless, to which I had attached a list of 5,902 telephone numbers that had turned up in Jeane’s telephone records. The subpoena had sought the account holder information for each telephone number that appeared in Verizon Wireless’ records on the day the call was made to Jeane’s escort service. All of the telephone companies had been complaining to me that the task was too big, but I kept reminding them that this was a federal subpoena and they would be explaining that to the federal judge who had authorized the subpoena.

Thus, it was a surprise to me when I returned to my office after the December 14th hearing to find a FedEx package from Verizon Wireless containing a CD with Verizon Wireless’ response to the subpoena: 815 account holders names, addresses, social security numbers, and home and business telephone numbers—all contained in an Excel spreadsheet. Each name represented a former escort or client who had a cell phone number that had called Jeane’s escort service when that cell phone number was owned by that person. Stated another way, I now had 815 new leads who had not, heretofore, been identified through the telephone records by anyone.

The leads were stunning. Among the entities whose corporate cell phone numbers showed up were:
  • Washington College
  • Jones Day Reavis and Pogue, a large law firm
  • Archdiocese of Washington
  • Hewlett Packard
  • Akin Gump Strauss, a large law firm
  • The Durst Law Firm
  • Philips Electronics North America
  • NXP Semiconductors USA, Inc. – Providing engineers and designers with semiconductors, system solutions and software that deliver better sensory experiences. Net sales of $6.32 billion in 2007.
  • Patterson Belknap Webb, a large law firm
  • Defense Group, Inc. – is a high technology company, advancing public safety and national security through innovative research, new technologies, and systems assessments. DGI has key competencies in U.S. strategy and policy, intelligence, Weapons of Mass Destruction, vulnerability assessments, and homeland security, as well as technologies and products that support first responder and medical communities.
  • The Roger Richman Agency Inc – The Roger Richman Agency, Inc. was purchased by Corbis’ owner Bill Gates in 2005 and is the preeminent licensing agency specializing in protecting and promoting the personae of world-renowned entertainment and historic personalities.
  • U.S. Dept of Commerce
  • Internal Revenue Service
  • The Army Capabilities Integration Center – The Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) is the Army's leader in the identification, design, development, and synchronization of capabilities into the Army current Modular Force and the future Modular Force, bringing together all the Army agencies as well as Joint, Multinational, and other DoD agencies to manage rapid change. ARCIC supports TRADOC in providing adaptive soldiers, leaders and units by contributing to the development of doctrine, TTPs, and the collective training experience.
  • U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command – TRADOC recruits, trains and educates the Army's soldiers; develops leaders; supports training in units; develops doctrine; establishes standards; and builds the future Army. TRADOC is the architect of the Army and "thinks for the Army" to meet the demands of a nation at war while simultaneously anticipating solutions to the challenges of tomorrow.
  • US Postal Service
  • USPS - Information Technology
  • United States Coast Guard
  • Embassy of Japan
  • Constellation Energy – Constellation Energy, a Fortune 125 competitive energy company based in Baltimore, is the nation’s largest supplier of wholesale power and competitive electricity to large commercial and industrial customers, and a major generator of electricity, with a diversified fleet of power plants strategically located throughout the United States.
  • Andersen Consulting
  • Department of Health & Human Services - Office of the Inspector, The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency – is a Department of Defense combat support agency and a member of the national Intelligence Community (IC). NGA develops imagery and map-based intelligence solutions for U.S. national defense, homeland security and safety of navigation.
  • Reed Smith – a law firm that represents many of the world’s leading companies in complex litigation and other high-stakes disputes, cross-border and other strategic transactions, and crucial regulatory matters. With lawyers from coast-to-coast in the U.S. as well as in the U.K., continental Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the firm is known for its experience across a broad array of industry sectors. The firm counsels 28 of the top 30 U.S. banks and 10 of the world's 12 largest pharmaceutical companies.
  • USAISC – U.S. Army Information Systems Command
  • LogicTree – provides innovative IVR solutions for the Transit and 511 markets. They provide solutions focused on connecting agencies to their customers, making access to transit and traffic information easy and intuitive. Since 2001, LogicTree has led the market with innovative, proven solutions, deploying the world’s first speech-enabled transit trip planning IVR, the first Personalized 511 and the first Spanish 511 systems, all using proven speech recognition technology and LogicTree’s patented VoxLinx telephony platform.
  • The National Drug Intelligence Center – established by the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 1993. Placed under the direction and control of the Attorney General, NDIC was established to “coordinate and consolidate drug intelligence from all national security and law enforcement agencies, and produce information regarding the structure, membership, finances, communications, and activities of drug trafficking organizations.”
  • Atlantic Research Corporation Political Action Committee
  • Fauquier Bank
  • Lockheed Martin MS2– MS2 provides surface, air, and undersea applications on more than 460 programs for U.S. military and international customers
While there might be innocent explanations for company cell phones repeatedly calling an escort service, certainly among the list were former escorts and customers. This supposition was certain as the account holder’s cell phone numbers matched with the date of calls to Jeane’s escort service. Moreover, the list of individuals was also comprehensive and included, among others:
  • a director of the Defense Contract Management Agency
  • a commander of the 332rd Expeditionary Maintenance Group, Balad Air Base, Iraq
  • a high ranking officer of Colonel Pipeline Company which had reached a Settlement for Oil Spills in Five States
  • an Environmental Protection Agency employee
  • a former president of the National District Attorney Association
  • a Hewlett Packard Director who had made substantial contributions to U.S. Senate races
  • an attorney with the prominent Akin Gump law firm (the law firm that fired “Abbey.” an employee upon learning she was an escort for Jeane)
  • a director of the Association of Foreign Intelligence Officers
  • an attorney with Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, another major law firm with deep Washington, D.C. ties
  • a state representative from Louisiana
  • a member of the Maryland Public Service Commission
  • a NASA astronaut
  • a special envoy for Middle East Security appointed by Condoleezza Rice
Plainly, I now had the ability to bring a parade of former clients, companies and government agencies in front of the jury to establish either that (a) no sex was had, or (b) that if sex for money was involved, then “Why Just Jeane?”

However, my dilemma was that Judge Robertson had just quashed this subpoena, meaning that I was not supposed to have, or use, this information.

Moreover, these names were just from Verizon Wireless. Subpoena returns were still outstanding from AT&T Mobility, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Alltel. Those cell phone companies would never respond, as word that Judge Robertson had quashed the subpoenas was apparently rapidly communicated by the Government to prevent these cell phone companies from replying to the subpoenas and further identifying former escorts and clients of Pamela Martin & Associates.

Judge Robertson would subsequently issue a written order overruling Judge Kessler and quashing almost all the subpoenas she had ordered served. Among those quashed were all of the cell phone telephone company subpoenas. As a result, further names and entities would never come to light and those learned through the Verizon Wireless records would, thanks to Preston, likewise never see the light of day.  (N.B. I have now securely stored these records on off-shore servers to be publicly released in the event of my curious disappearance or demise).

To address any questions or concerns, please contact Montgomery Sibley by e-mail (Sibley@WhyJustHer.com) or telephone: 202-478-0371.



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