D.C. Madam releases phone records

WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) -- The public release of phone records belonging to alleged Washington D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey has some working overtime in the dig for dirt.

"I've got the air conditioning on and my coffee cup beside me and we'll be plodding through the list," Lori Price, the editor of Citizens for Legitimate Government, a liberal Web site, told The Washington Post.

Within hours of the release Monday, a U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., acknowledged his telephone number was on the list. Vitter referred only to a "serious sin" in his past but didn't say if he used the escort service. Vitter issued his statement after a reporter working for Hustler magazine contacted him in what the sex magazine said was its search for "moral hypocrites," the Post reported Wednesday.

After a U.S. federal judge released the records last week, Palfrey's lawyer gave them to 50 interested individuals or groups who wished to remain anonymous, the Post said. The records, from the years 1993 through 2006, also are on the Web site for Palfrey's legal defense fund.