The girl who made worldwide headlines a decade in the past because the soccer mother madam, accused of working an Higher East Aspect name woman ring for millionaires, stated she thought she was working a legit observe and didn’t assume she was doing something unsuitable.
“I actually thought it was OK. And I thought I ran a business like Martha Stewart and there was nothing wrong with that,” stated Anna Gristina, in her first TV interview since pleading responsible to selling prostitution
Even 10 years after being the main target of a worldwide media frenzy, Gristina stays unapologetic. The suburban soccer mother initially from Scotland was charged by the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace with a single depend of selling prostitution, a cost that adopted a multi-year investigation into her dealings with high-level shoppers she says she refused to call.
In an unique interview with Information 4 New York, Anna Gristina says she’s going to disclose “bizarre” needs of her ultra-rich shoppers in a tell-all e-book.
“This case was never about prostitution, it was about politics,” Gristina stated. “I was abducted off the street and they wanted me to become a confidential informant … They wanted me to set people up and tape record them, they wanted dirt on these people. They wanted leverage for political gain.”
She says she refuse, and spent 4 months on Rikers Island because of this. In a jailhouse interview with the In the present day Present, she maintained she was simply working a relationship service, saying that it “was just like match.com.”
However a couple of months later, a doable seven-year jail sentence, she pleaded responsible to that one prostitution depend. She was sentenced to time served, together with probation.
“I was definitely bullied into the plea deal,” Gristina stated.
The Manhattan DA’s workplace stated on the time Gristina was accountable for her selections and rented ladies’s our bodies for revenue — which made her a pimp.
“I had a year’s waiting list of incredibly educated women from all over the world seeking to come through my door and get a spot on my roster,” she stated. “Nobody did anything they didn’t want to do. Nobody was manipulated or forced.”
The 55-year-old nonetheless lives in the identical Upstate New York house, rescuing pigs. She’s at peace together with her life, however bristles at being labelled a convicted felon.
“It ruined my life forever. There’s no coming back from it,” stated Gristina, however added that she has no regrets, calling her enterprise the “cleanest the business has ever been ran.”
In talking with NBC New York, Gristina revealed she ran the enterprise for practically 20 years — however not out of the Higher East Aspect residence that the media cited as her brothel. That was simply her crash pad when she had late enterprise conferences.
She says the women met shoppers in ritzy Manhattan residences or resorts.
“The fees could be on the low end, $1,000 per hour with a two-hour minimum, to as high as $25,000 for a weekend,” of which Gristina would get a lower, she stated.
The connection between the shoppers and the ladies was one “based on trust,” she stated. She stays agency in not desirous to share the names of her former shoppers.
“To this day I still feel naming names is not the right thing to do,” Gristina stated. “It defeats the purpose of who I am.”
To make ends meet, Gristina consulted on final 12 months’s Lifetime film, “The Soccer Mom Madam,” and has revealed kids’s books below a fictitious identify. She can be about to launch a fiction novel referred to as “Secret Desires of the One Percent.” No names, she says, however confirmed the tales actually occurred — and informed Information 4 that folks ought to learn between the strains.
“I picked the most unique ones because they’re so surreal that even sometimes when I reread them, I go, ‘Nobody is going to believe that.’ They’re just so bizarre,” Gristina stated.
As for her subsequent work, it will likely be a nonfiction autobiography concentrating on politicians she claims used her as a pawn.
“I’m coming for you boys and you better look out,” she stated. “And I will put you in the biography, name for name.”
Her attorneys have now filed papers in federal courtroom looking for to have transcripts in her case — which beforehand have been sealed — be launched. She desires her conviction overturned and a brand new trial.