Four Former Call Girls Testify at Palfrey Trial

Each former call girl who took the witness stand in Judge James Robertson's courtroom said yesterday that she and Palfrey had a tacit understanding that having sex for money was a condition for employment with Pamela Martin & Associates, Palfrey's business. But they added that Palfrey never talked about it in explicit terms.

"This was a criminal enterprise," said Sharon King, 40, of Leesburg, who testified that she had sex with men about 80 times while employed by Palfrey in 2000. "We knew why we were there."

Each woman said that after she applied to work for Pamela Martin & Associates, she was sent to the home of a longtime client, who then reported to Palfrey on whether the woman was suited to be an escort.

Huang was one of the "testers," as prosecutors call them.

He testified that Palfrey asked him questions: "Was she enthusiastic? Passionate? Was she a dead fish? Something along those lines." He said Palfrey "wanted an honest opinion."

Like the others, Tracie Hoeffel, 44, of Cheverly, who said she worked for Palfrey in 2001, seemed reluctant to describe her job in detail. "I met with this man and had sex with him," she said of one encounter, and shrugged.

Hoeffel said she worked as an escort to help repay graduate school loans. She and the others said they mailed money orders to Palfrey for her 40 to 50 percent cut of the proceeds.

And there were a lot of proceeds, authorities allege.

"How many times did you have sexual intercourse and/or oral sex with a client at an appointment arranged by Pamela Martin & Associates?" prosecutor Catherine Connelly asked Donna Raphael, 29, of Silver Spring.

"Over 100," replied Raphael, who said she worked for Palfrey in 2001 and from 2004 to 2006.

Andrea Detty, 30, of Burke, recalled an appointment at which she said she declined to have sex with a client whom she described as mentally "very slow." When she told Palfrey about it on the phone, Detty said, the boss berated her. "She said, 'If I could come over there and do these appointments and [expletive] these people myself, I would -- but I'm in California.' "

Palfrey's hiring process, it turned out, was not flawless.

A fifth former employee testified yesterday: Fauzia Mack, 46, a Mary Kay cosmetics representative and mother of three from Rockville, who said she answered an Internet employment ad for Pamela Martin & Associates in 2006. She said she thought the company was a "social companionship" firm that would pay her to spend time with elderly people.

She said she wanted to earn money to buy dorm furniture for her daughter. She said she was sent to Great Falls for what she thought would be "an hour of companionship" with a man who eventually asked her for oral sex.

"That was not appropriate," said Mack, who told jurors that she left the house and called Palfrey to tell her what had happened. She said Palfrey fired her in anger.

"She called me a nitwit."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.