The Washington Sex Scandal That Wasn't?

Escort Client Numbers Could Have a Taker, but Might Not Add Up to Much

Guess what.

Change of plans.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey's client phone numbers aren't up for auction anymore -- at least according to her lawyer.

The alleged Washington call-girl madam, recently indicted on federal racketeering charges, has decided she wouldn't feel right doing business with some gossipy media outfit that pays for sleaze, her attorney said yesterday.

So it is possible that the nation's capital will not become embroiled in a raging sex scandal after all. Not right away, anyhow.

Sorry.

Oh, she had offers, said the lawyer, Montgomery Blair Sibley. Big-money bids. But it turned out that her conscience wouldn't allow her to truck with journalistic bottom-feeders, Sibley said. Instead, he said, Palfrey will give up her 46 pounds of records for free -- about 10,000 phone numbers dating to 1993 -- for "judicious use" by "a responsible news entity."

The recipient: "One of the most reputable and respected investigative news organizations in the country," Palfrey told WTOP radio in an e-mail Monday.

She didn't say who. It wasn't The Washington Post. (Rats!)

Palfrey's goal, Sibley said, is to track down as many men as she can who used her "legal, high-end erotic fantasy service" and ask them to testify on her behalf -- to rebut the prostitution allegations, to say that they merely indulged in pricey sexual game-playing with Palfrey's female employees, not actual sex.

Yet just last week, after a court appearance in the District, Palfrey, 50, reiterated a threat she had been making for months. To defray her legal expenses, she said, she planned to peddle the phone numbers of her well-to-do former clients to the highest bidder. She envisioned selling them to a scandal-mongering outfit, one that would research the numbers, find out who they belonged to and publicize the names.

Although Palfrey "does have a particular recollection of some individuals," Sibley said, her records are mainly just the numbers. And she "lacks the resources" to "thoroughly mine the records" to connect those numbers to names, he said. That's where the "reputable and respected investigative news" outlet comes in.