Maier says she defends Vitter

Ex-N.O. madam protests allegation

12 Jul 2007 // The former madam of a New Orleans brothel who contends U.S. Sen. David Vitter was a frequent customer in the 1990s said Wednesday she is going public to protect the Louisiana Republican.

Jeannette Maier, 48, pleaded guilty in 2002 to running the Canal Street brothel, where men paid up to $300 a visit. Maier didn’t like the way Vitter was being portrayed after he acknowledged Monday that his phone number appeared in the records of an escort service run by the woman dubbed the “D.C. Madam,” she said.

“Here’s a woman trying to bring this man down as only a number,” Maier said. “Just because people visit a whorehouse doesn’t make them a bad person.

“It’s crazy that this is even an issue,” Maier added.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people I slept with were married. So what?”

Maier, who said she didn’t have sex with Vitter, added, “He’s a good man and we’re looking at the man, not his penis.”

Maier’s attorney in the brothel case, Vinny Mosca, isn’t so sure Vitter was a customer of Maier’s business. He issued a statement Wednesday saying Vitter’s name never came up in the federal investigation into the brothel, a statement backed up by U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.

“David Vitter’s name was never picked up on a government wiretap nor is it listed in any transcript or court document as part of the Canal Street brothel case,” Mosca said Wednesday.

Montgomery Blair Sibley is the attorney for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the D.C. Madam. Vitter’s phone number, with the date Feb. 27, 2001, was on the list of up to 15,000 customers making more than 59,000 calls extending back to 1993, Sibley said.

Vitter, 46, acknowledged Monday that his number appeared on the escort service’s list. As a result, he could be called as a witness in Palfrey’s upcoming trial. She is accused by the federal government of running a prostitution ring, Sibley said. Vitter could be a witness for the prosecution or the defense, he said.

“He could be called by either,” Sibley said.

Preston Burton, Palfrey’s criminal defense attorney, declined to discuss whether he would call Vitter as a witness. The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuting Palfrey could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Palfrey contends that her company, Pamela Martin and Associates, was a legitimate escort service. On her Web site, she described the operation as a “high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior.”

Meanwhile, a Washington, D.C., citizens group said it may call for an ethics complaint to be filed against Vitter. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning group, said it is considering the move.

“If the first-term senator engaged in prostitution, that is a violation of the law,” Melanie Sloan, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “Under both the Senate and House ethics rules, violations of criminal law can represent conduct that does not reflect credibility on the House and Senate.”

The group noted that the complaint would have to be filed by a senator.

Vitter has remained out of sight since his statement was released. His spokesman, Joel DiGrado, said Wednesday the senator was in Metairie with his family and would have no further comment on the subject.

“He’s looking forward to returning to work soon,” DiGrado said.

In the Monday statement, Vitter apologized for being a customer of the Washington escort service, calling it “a serious sin” for which he takes full responsibility.

Vitter, who served six years in the U.S. House before being elected to the Senate in 2004, said he and his wife, Wendy, have gone through marriage counseling. The couple has four children.

In 2002, a report in The Louisiana Weekly, a New Orleans newspaper, accused Vitter of having an affair with a prostitute who called herself Wendy Cortez. The story said Vitter made visits twice a week to a French Quarter apartment.

A year later, Vitter bowed out of a 2003 bid for governor, citing marital difficulties.

Vitter was one of Cortez’s customers at the Canal Street brothel, Maier said Wednesday.

“A lot of men liked Wendy,” she said.