Four days ago, the woman known as the "D.C. Madam" stood in the lobby of her condominium building near downtown Orlando, musing about the future. Deborah Jeane Palfrey said she was preparing for federal prison. She hoped she'd get time off her sentence for good behavior. She thought she might buy a place in Germany one day.

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"It's hard to believe," said Joseph Strizack, a condominium-association manager at Park Lake Towers who got to know Palfrey during her decade as an owner there. "She did not seem the least bit distraught."

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A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia said that under sentencing guidelines, Palfrey faced five to six years in prison. She was free until a sentencing hearing scheduled for July 24.


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A woman who worked for the escort service, former University of Maryland professor Brandy Britton, killed herself in January 2007 before she was scheduled to go to trial on prostitution charges. Palfrey said afterward that she was humiliated by her prostitution charges but added: "I guess I'm made of something that Brandy Britton wasn't made of."

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Blanche Palfrey had not noticed that her daughter was despondent or seen any signs of suicidal behavior, Young said.

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On Monday, Palfrey seemed no different. She carried clothing, briefcases and suitcases down the stairs from her second-floor apartment to a rented car in the parking lot, stopping to chat as usual. She told Strizack she was taking her property to her mother's home in preparation for prison. Contrary to the U.S. Attorney's Office estimate, she told the condo manager she thought she might spend six or seven years behind bars. On one trip down the stairs, she lugged a 2-foot-wide box she suggested carried materials related to her infamous court case. "This is my evidence," she told Strizack before carrying it out the door.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The building manager of a Central Florida condo said he spent time talking to Deborah Jean Palfrey on Monday as she packed to go to her mother's house and she did not seem suicidal ...

Palfrey’s building manager said she often told him she believed she was being followed and he thinks there may have been some former clients of her escort service who wanted her dead.

"She insinuated that there is a contract out for her and I fully believe they succeeded," her building manager said.

Palfrey's Lexus is still parked in the Park Lake garage and the staff said on Monday, she asked about making sure her condo fees would continue to be paid during what Palfrey anticipated would be six years in prison ...