Deborah Jean Palfrey, whose Washington, D.C.-based call-girl ring earned her notoriety and the nickname the “D.C. Madam,” left two suicide notes behind when she (apparently) hanged herself last Thursday behind her mother’s Florida home.

The Washington Post:

The note to Palfrey’s mother, Blanche Palfrey, 76, asked for forgiveness:

“Mom, I want you to know how very much I love and appreciate you,” the note began. “I sincerely apologize for any pain which I have caused you in this lifetime. Additionally, I can’t sufficiently express to you how badly I feel for this burden I am leaving you with here.

“However, I cannot live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what both you and I have come to regard as this ‘modern day lynching,’ only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman,” she wrote.

Palfrey had been staying with her mother in Florida since a jury convicted her last month of running a prostitution ring that masqueraded as a high-end erotic fantasy service. Palfrey argued that for 13 years she had no idea that the call girls working for her were getting paid $250 an hour for sex.

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