An upstate woman accused of running a lucrative Upper East Side brothel and boasting of law-enforcement connections was sentenced on Tuesday to six months in prison after weighing a last-minute decision to fight the case in court. Attorneys and family for Anna Gristina said she considered withdrawing her Sept. 24 guilty plea to promoting prostitution up until the moment she agreed to accept the sentence handed down by Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Juan Merchan. “It was a very difficult decision, and until the penultimate moment, it was an open question on whether she would elect go to trail,” said attorney Norman Pattis. Gristina, who was once dubbed the “Manhattan Madam” and the “Soccer Mom Madam,” will not have to serve any jail time, getting credit for four months she served at Riker’s Island because she could not make the initial $2 million bail…As she left the courthouse, Gristina told reporters that she plans to write tell-all book and called the Manhattan District Attorney’s office “more corrupt than the mafia.” Gristina’s case received extended media coverage following her February arrest amid an unconfirmed belief she had guarded a client list of recognizable and powerful figures in politics, sports and banking. Her lawyers had argued she was being “vindictively prosecuted” because she refused to provide investigators with the names of five well-connected male customers, who weren’t identified. [Metropolis]
brothels
Unable to post her $2 million bail and desperate to get her out of jail and home for Mother’s Day, the husband and kids of accused Upper East Side madam Anna Gristina have gone public to raise money. The family yesterday launched a Web site asking for donations toward her whopping bail, which they blast as “cruel and unusual.” The site, www.helpanna.org, features photos of Gristina with her kids and information about her pig-rescue farm. Gristina was arrested on Feb. 22 on a single count of promoting prostitution. Since then, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has refused to budge on Gristina’s sky-high bail of $2 million bond — or $1 million cash — siding with prosecutors who claim the Scottish-born mom of four is a flight risk. Gristina lawyer Gary Greenwald has argued that the “outrageous’’ bond is beyond what’s given for mobsters, drug dealers and murderers. [NYP, related]
The last six weeks have been a fairly stressful time for Anna Gristina/Scotland. On March 6, she was arrested for allegedly running a brothel out of an East 78th Street apartment, where she provided hookers to “wealthy, powerful men” (“politicians, top-law enforcement, influential lawyers, bankers, entertainment execs and Fortune 500 businessmen”), which meant her plans for global expansion (the details of which she’d been hammering out with a broker friend just that morning) had to be shelved. On April 3, her request for reduced bail (set at $2 million) was denied for a fourth time. On April 9, it became clear she was probably going to have to send her pet pigs to a farm “upstate.” Right now, as she sits in a jail cell on Riker’s Island, it would be fair to assume Gristina/Scotland’s spirits are pretty low. And while it may be little consolation, she should know that everyone back home, across the pond, is not only rooting for her but swelling with pride over her accomplishments, which they speak of in terms generally reserved for local athletes bringing home Olympic gold medals. Read more »
Gristina reportedly ran a top-shelf operation, carefully choosing her stable of women and screening potential clients…the married mother of four took just a 40% cut of her employees’ billings during her 15 years in business — well below the industry standard 50-50 split with working girls, say sources. The madam’s generosity was one of the things that escort Lizzie most appreciated from her 44-year-old boss. [NYDN, Earlier: I'm a CEO, I'm building an empire]
Charlie Gasparino Names Morgan Stanley Guy Allegedly Helping To Expand UES Brothel Business
By Bess LevinEarlier this morning it was reported that Morgan Stanley “reviewed its visitor logs” upon hearing that one of its employees was supposedly conducting business with Anna Gristina/Scotland, a purveyor of prostitutes, when she was arrested this week. In the event the bank is still on the hunt, Charlie Gasparino claims to have a name. Read more »
Manhattan DA Pumps The Brakes On Mom/Madam’s Brothel Just As It Was About To Really Take Off With The Help Of Her Contacts In The Business World
By Bess Levin
HQ on East 78th Street
As the entrepreneurial among us know, successful, brand name business don’t just happen overnight. They take blood, sweat, tears and in some cases, other bodily fluids, that the public never sees. Anna Gristina was nearly there. The mother of four (who went by the name “Anna Scotland” professionally) had been providing hookers for to “wealthy, powerful men” (“politicians, top-law enforcement, influential lawyers, bankers, entertainment execs and Fortune 500 businessmen”) out of an Upper East Side whorehouse for a decade and a half, had developed a thriving client list willing to pay between $1000 (for a “Dream Girl”) to $2000+ (for an “Ultimate Elite Model”) per appointment, and made millions in the process. She was ready for the big time. Just the other day, in fact, Gristina/Scotland was sitting down at the office of her friend and business associate, a Morgan Stanley employee, to hear his plan for “expanding her operation through the Internet.” And then this happened. Read more »
So, the London police recently decided they’ve had it with brothels and have started to crack down on the pay-to-lay establishments. Perhaps you heard about their last raid– codename “Operation Monaco”– through the grapevine or because it was your colleague laying there with a ball gag in his mouth while a terrifying woman with a thick Eastern European accent shouted “Administer the testicle clamps!”? Sound familiar? It might if you’re tight with the “35-year-old from Citibank in Canary Wharf” who had been “availing the services of two Polish hookers” when the cops walked in. Read more »
Member Of Team ABACUS Pens Book Called “How I Caused The Credit Crunch,” Based On His Time Spent Asking Important Question Like “Where Is The Brothel?”
By Bess Levin
Tetsuya Ishikawa worked for six years as a credit banker at ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Last year he was fired from MS, and a couple years prior to that, he was listed as one of the salesman investors should contact if they wanted to get a piece of ABACUS. And since getting canned, he’s written a novel based on his “personal account of 21st-century banking excess,” which was just published this week. How much of the story relayed by narrator Andrew Dover actually happened to ‘Tets’? He’d put it at “close to 90 percent.” (Dover was hired for his job with a $3 million guarantee, whereas in six years, Tets only took home a little “more than £1 million before taxes.” Also, Andy does a lot of blow, where as the author says that “he was never a keen consumer of cocaine”). As for being a real page turner, according to reviewer Sathnam Sanghera, Ishikawa “makes structuring, syndicating and selling credit derivative, CDO and securitisation products as dull as it sounds,” and does not name-check The Fabulous Fab, having not realized during the writing process that the SEC would be going after his former colleague the same week he made his authorial debut. And it’s not clear how much light is shed on how exactly we got into this mess. Tets (via Dover) does however do a pretty good job of talking lap dances, strippers, and turning hoes into housewives, based on his experience in the field. Read more »
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