Call Girl Confidential (22 page)

S
ince Anna had gotten out of jail late on the night of June 26, she had been lying low on her spread, albeit while wearing a clunky electronic ankle monitor. Three days after Anna was sprung, Jaynie Mae made a solo appearance in court, where Judge Merchan told her that she and Anna would be tried together. Jaynie Mae's lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, didn't argue, saying he was fine with fighting the indictment in a team effort with Anna's lawyer, whoever that would be.

But then, on July 24, Anna got a clue that something was up with her co-defendant. Gottlieb filed a motion to get Jaynie Mae's case dismissed with the brilliant argument that, since
the undercover officer just watched Maz Bottone and Catherine DeVries have sex, a crime didn't occur.

He told Judge Merchan that the secret video showed “the undercover officer meeting two other women at an apartment who eventually appear to engage in sexual contact with each other, but not with the undercover officer, which is confirmed by the video itself. The undercover officer apparently remains fully clothed, and merely observed the two women perform for him.

“If what occurred is considered prostitution, and what Ms. Baker allegedly ‘promoted,' then every adult film director/producer and every owner of a strip club is guilty of promoting prostitution.”

(Note to self: If you ever get busted, call Robert Gottlieb.)

On August 14, just two days before Jaynie Mae and Anna were to sit side by side at the defense table, Jaynie Mae blindsided her.

“Hooker Booker Strikes a Deal,” trumpeted WPIX-TV.

“Jaynie Mae Baker has agreed to plead guilty to a violation,” reported Janon Fisher and Corky Siemaszko in the
New York Daily News
, adding that “it won't leave a criminal record.”

Gottlieb wouldn't tell reporters whether Jaynie Mae would take the stand to testify against Anna at trial in exchange for her get-out-of-jail-free card.

It was clear from comments made by Anna's lawyer Norman Pattis that Jaynie Mae hadn't even given Anna a heads-up call.

“I have every reason to believe we will be in court by ourselves on Thursday,” said Pattis. “I am unaware of anything Jaynie Mae Baker can say that would hurt Anna Gristina. If she wants to say things to help herself, we understand. We regret she won't be sitting with us at the defense table.”

Anna then made a statement that surprised me. “She's a good girl,” she told the
New York Post
. “She doesn't deserve to be involved in this.”

Here, even as Anna was maintaining that she was innocent, that she didn't run a prostitution ring, that her business was a matchmaking service, this statement seemed to be a tacit acknowledgment of her own guilt. In other words, Jaynie Mae was a “good girl”—but she was not.

Anna was the lone defendant in court August 16, but she wasn't alone. Anna thought it wise to have her young husband, Kelvin, bring her teenage son, Stefano, and nine-year-old son, Nick. No doubt she thought it made her look like the beleaguered mom. But at what cost to the boys as they heard the proceedings?

Her college-aged daughter, Suzie, also showed up, along with the private eye Vinnie Parco and the two hulky bodyguards whom Kelvin always kept around him. Was Kelvin afraid some of our tougher clients might show up to have a word with him? They didn't have to worry. Anna still wasn't talking.

“It ain't happening,” her lawyer, Pattis, told reporters. “[Anna] is not cutting a deal. She is not cooperating. She is not interested in talking about the state's suspicions.”

I had to wonder why Anna was being so stubborn. Did she fear more jail time? It was doubtful she would get the maximum seven years for a class-D felony, or even the four years that pimps sometimes got. Was she afraid of being deported back to Scotland? Or was she afraid of some of the clients?

But our clients had so much money, surely they could have rewarded her handsomely for her silence as they painlessly opened their wallets. If she went through the ordeal of a trial with her mouth shut, there were a lot of rich men out there who would be
grateful. There was one in particular whom I truly felt she was counting on.

Kristin Davis didn't name names in court, either, but she pleaded guilty and had to hand over $2 million in profits after doing four months' time on Rikers. No, Kristin waited for the talk-show circuit to name names, including Eliot Spitzer and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. She admitted to “doing business” with ballplayer Alex Rodriguez.

Jaynie Mae and Jonas Gayer had flipped; so had Maz Bottone and Catherine DeVries. Not Anna. “We are going to trial,” Pattis said at the hearing, and Judge Merchan set her trial date for October 15.

But then the judge said something unbelievable. Charlie stood up and told Judge Merchan that at the trial he might endeavor to introduce witness testimony and wiretap evidence “about other incidents not covered in the indictment.”

Judge Merchan, perhaps annoyed at the prosecutors for their part in causing him to be reprimanded by the five-judge Appellate Division panel for setting Anna's bail too high, snapped at Charlie.

“This is a very narrow issue!” he warned. “This is going to be a very short case. I'm not going to allow this to get out of hand.”

All the undercover work I had done and testified about in Judge Merchan's chambers; all the testimony of other girls and confidential witnesses who had not been arrested; all that Jonas Gayer, Anna's moneyman, had told the judge in his chambers—all of it was for
nothing.
All that was why Judge Merchan had set the bail so high—that, and because Anna was a flight risk.
None of that was going to come out, because there was only one charge on the indictment.
Why the hell did the prosecutors put me through so much if they weren't going to wait to build a stronger case before they
indicted Anna? Why did they get Maz and Catherine to agree to take the stand and testify about all they knew about the business?

I was still stunned a month later when Anna went on the
Dr. Phil
show. Dr. Phil McGraw went up to Anna's farm and interviewed her at her round oak table, near a wood-burning stove and with views of the pastures through the glass doors. When he asked her if she was the madam of an escort service, Anna looked Dr. Phil in the eye and said with a straight face, “I have a matchmaking company I just started with a partner.” When Dr. Phil asked Anna whether Maz Bottone and Catherine DeVries were call girls, Anna again looked Dr. Phil straight in the eye and said, “No.”

I guess I wasn't a call girl working for Anna. I guess I was just working for a matchmaking company when I was having sex with rich men for money, of which Anna got a 40 percent cut.

Anna told Dr. Phil that the prosecutors wanted her to talk about two clients in particular, but she wouldn't. She also said that she had so little money “she could barely put food on the table.” It's hard swallowing that when you're looking out the window at two hundred acres of meadow.

And while her attorney, Norman Pattis, who was sitting nearby and clashing with Dr. Phil, didn't allow her to answer questions about her case, Anna said she would take a lie-detector test and swear that she had never been a part of the business. Even though I had just heard her lie, that made me feel better.

Not two weeks later, on September 25, Anna was brought to the criminal courthouse in the prison bus from Rikers. She was in handcuffs, looking dowdy and defeated in a black sweater studded with silver. She was a far cry from the glamorous woman in furs with whom I'd once gone to Vegas with clients.

After four months on Rikers Island and three months lugging an ankle bracelet around the farm, she had had enough. Pattis had convinced her to “take the plea.”

But Charlie Linehan also looked defeated. He rose and addressed the judge. “Over the years, the defendant made numerous claims that she had connections and influence in any number of city, state, and federal agencies, including the NYPD, the FBI, the DA's office, the governor's office, and Customs, among others,” he said. “We have spent time investigating the defendant's claims, and we have not found evidence to support any of those claims.

“We are left with a straightforward promoting-prostitution case—a defendant who ran a brothel for many years who profited from the sex trade. That is all.”

The ponytailed Pattis, who kept calling Charlie “my brother,” said, “I don't expect anyone in this room to nominate Ms. Gristina for sainthood. But she has many good qualities, and among them is loyalty, despite the pressure that was brought to bear—not illegal pressure, but pressure nevertheless. We would recommend that if she were to enter a guilty plea that she be sentenced to time served. She is a first-time offender without a criminal record.

“I hope your honor will consider a plea of guilty to one simple count of promoting prostitution in July 2010.”

Even the judge seemed in disbelief that it had come only to this. He seemed annoyed, and not just because Anna's husband, Kelvin, had brought their nine-year-old son into the courtroom to hear his mother called a trafficker in prostitution.

Judge Merchan scolded, “I have to say that I am certainly not pleased with some of Ms. Gristina's conduct during the
proceedings. By way of illustration, I will say that I am not happy that Ms. Gristina's young child is in the courtroom.”

Neither Anna nor Kelvin Gorr got the hint to have the boy brought outside, so Judge Merchan had to discuss the sex business in which Anna had engaged in front of him.

“Is it true, Ms. Gristina, that you arranged a sexual encounter with a man, then known to you as Anthony, between two prostitutes?”

“Yes,” Anna answered meekly.

“If this had gone to trial,” Judge Merchan continued, “you would face up to two and one-third to seven years incarceration, and I have promised you six months of a jail/probation split.”

Anna would be on probation for five years.

“During probation, you must meet with a probation officer, have a job or go to school, not take illegal drugs, and submit to testing for illegal drugs. Do you agree?”

“Yes,” she answered meekly again.

Judge Merchan then gave her a stern warning:

“Your guilty plea will subject you to deportation, and may interfere with any naturalization process. You may very well be deported as a result of this.”

In quick succession in the next few weeks, Maz and Catherine, who had already flipped in May and were going to testify against Anna, were freed from having to go on the stand. They had a lot more to talk about than the one “girl-on-girl” incident. It turns out that, unbeknownst to each other, Anna had hooked them up separately with one of the wealthiest men in New York, a man who used his funds to influence elections. But for now, their testimony became moot. Maz left the courthouse with a jacket over her head, and Catherine's lawyer said she had been
mortified by the experience, especially when her family found out how she had secretly been earning a living. She didn't throw a
schmatte
over her head, and so her face was all over the news. Catherine fled to California after pleading guilty to misdemeanor prostitution charges and getting off with no jail and no probation.

On November 20, two days before Thanksgiving, Anna was back in Judge Merchan's court for a perfunctory sentencing.

“Do you have anything to say, Ms. Gristina?” asked Judge Merchan.

“It's probably better that I don't, Your Honor,” Anna replied.

She would save that for
Dr. Phil
.

Anna was released, free to go, ankle monitor off, after being sentenced to the four months time served and five years probation.

That's it. That's all she wrote, as they say.

The DA claimed Anna had a lawyer friend who helped her invest and launder her money. “This is not that lawyer,” said Jaroslawicz's attorney. Investigators seemed to find nothing in Jaroslawicz's papers and didn't bring charges against him. Jonas Gayer went scot-free, despite being taped by me with money launderers. They couldn't find Anna's money, though I had seen records of it on Jonas's computer. And despite Anna boasting on tape of her law enforcement connections, it came to naught. And somewhere out there, a very rich man is likely still pursuing his desires to have sex with a child.

J
ust before Christmas, Anna, who had said during the trial she'd rather “bite off her tongue” than name names, immediately told the press that she would start naming clients during a second appearance on
Dr. Phil
. The
New York Post's
Page Six quoted Anna as saying, “There is going to be a giant name dropped—actually, a couple of them. Everyone's going to have to watch
Dr. Phil
. I will tell you that one of the names is high-level [NFL] management. Then there's an older [football] player who's still very well-known. Tune in to
Dr. Phil
!”

But all Anna's shilling for
Dr. Phil
had billionaires and other bigwigs who had been clients getting increasingly nervous,
including one power player interviewed by top journalist Murray Weiss of DNAinfo.com. He admitted that Anna had hooked him up with a woman who worked as an interior decorator, as Maz did, after soliciting him via e-mail.

“I don't understand why [Anna] is sort of offering people up,” the client told Weiss, who described him as a “50-something mogul.”

“It has been an uncomfortable period for me, and I am sure for others, since all this began. But I can't figure out if she wants to sell books . . . or get on talk shows. . . . I think she feels she needs leverage, and it's a form of currency when you have something that is potentially sexy and salacious and worthy of a lot of curiosity. That may be the card she has to play.