Scottish 'Madam' Admits Prostitution Charge

A Scottish mother of four charged with moonlighting as a multimillion dollar madam in New York has pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution as part of a plea deal.

Anna Gristina, a legal US resident originally from Kirkliston, near Edinburgh, made the plea in a Manhattan court.

She spent four months in jail before being released on $250,000 (£154,000) bail in June.

The judge said she will be sentenced on November 20 to time-served and probation, and warned that she could also be deported.

Gristina's lawyers said she spent her time rescuing animals at her 12-acre property in Monroe, about 50 miles north of New York City.

But prosecutors accused the 45-year-old of having a list of wealthy, well-placed clients and boasting of law-enforcement connections during 15 years in a business that made her millions.

She had insisted she was merely starting a dating service.

She was charged with a single count of promoting prostitution, stemming from a July 2011 tryst that authorities say she arranged involving two women and an undercover officer posing as a client.

Gristina was arrested February 22 as she left a friend's Morgan Stanley office after a fundraising meeting for her business, prosecutors say.

In trying to get the case dismissed, her lawyer, Norman Pattis, wrote that the district attorney's office "vindictively prosecuted her as a result of her failure to co-operate with investigators" during what he called an illegal interrogation.

Gristina said in court papers that investigators shrugged off her requests for a lawyer and told her they would let her go if she gave them information about five men.

The men were not named in court documents, but are described as a financier, an international banker and a member of a politically-connected family, among others.

Co-defendant Jaynie Baker, a former matchmaking recruiter was charged with helping Gristina set up sexual encounters, has also reached a deal to resolve her case.

Baker, 31, is due back in court on October 2.