The resignation of a senior US State Department official has put the spotlight on an alleged Washington call-girl ring and pending trial of its madam who claims powerful men were among thousands of clients.The capital has been riveted by the chance influential men may now be caught with their trousers down since Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 50, dubbed the DC Madam in local media, was arraigned in federal court on charges of operating a Washington prostitution service for 13 years until her retirement in 2006.

Palfrey has denied she ran a prostitution ring. Her company, Pamela Martin and Associates, was simply a high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior, she said.

Palfrey contends her escort service provided university-educated women to engage in legal game-playing of a sexual nature at 275 dollars an hour for a 90-minute session, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

But Palfrey has also hinted that she has a record of the phone numbers of thousands of the more than 10,000 customers her company served which could embarrass more than a few of the US capital's high-fliers.

Friday, the State Department announced that Randall Tobias, the embattled head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), was resigning for unspecified personal reasons.

However broadcaster ABC News, which said Palfrey had provided it with a record of the numbers of calls to her private cell phone, reported late Friday that Tobias had stepped down after it spoke to him about his alleged calls to her number.

Before taking the USAID post, Tobias was President George W. Bush's first global AIDS coordinator and drew criticism for his emphasis on partner fidelity and abstinence, instead of condom use, as a means to prevent the spread of the AIDS virus.

Previously he was chairman, president and chief executive of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, and also, from 1997-2000, chairman of the board of trustees at Duke University.

His now-reported links to a firm accused of prostitution have raised more than a few eyebrows.

Palfrey's California home and other assets were seized by US tax authorities in October, and Palfrey has been trying to raise funds for her defense through an appeal on her website.

"I'm sure as heck not going to federal prison for one day, let alone four to eight years, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever," she told ABC.

Her lawyer, Montgomery Blair Sibley, told Fox television last month: "The statistical certainty (is) that there are a fair number of high-profile people who used this service across the government and private sector in the metropolitan DC (District of Columbia) area."

And The Washington Post reported Saturday that local jitters appeared to be multiplying.

It said Sibley claimed that "he has been contacted in the past few days by five lawyers asking whether their clients' phone numbers are on Palfrey's list of 10,000 to 15,000 customers from 2002 to 2006."

That may have something to do with the fact that Palfrey already has named her first name, as it were, on her website, where she has posted a court document from April 12 in which she alleges formal US naval commander Harlan Ullman was a "regular customer" whom she needs to subpoena.

Ullman, with James Wade, developed the military doctrine of "shock and awe" used by the US government in its invasion of Iraq. According to one definition, it is shorthand for rapid dominance based on the use of "overwhelming decisive force," "dominant maneuvers" and "spectacular displays of power" to subdue the other side.

Earlier this month Ullman told CNN: "The allegations do not dignify a response," and referred any other questions to his lawyer.
Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse.