Paris: British madam found guilty

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From the UK's BBC News:

A British woman has been found guilty of running one of Europe's biggest prostitution rings at a court in Paris.

Margaret MacDonald, 44, who speaks eight languages and holds several business degrees, admitted running an escort agency employing hundreds of men and women.

However, she had always told the French court it was up to her employees whether or not they slept with clients.

A convent-educated former marketing manager from Bedford, MacDonald has been in jail since her arrest in May last year at the Paris hotel that was her French operations base.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3206355.stm

Product of a faith-based initiative?


On edit: addendum:


Margaret MacDonald was arrested in May 2002 by French authorities who suspected her escort agency was offering more than just companionship. The court was told of MacDonald's international escort business. She was convicted, on her 44th birthday, of "aggravated procuring for the purpose of prostitution" and faces up to ten years in jail. She had already admitted running an escort agency, which under French law could alone be enough to earn her six months in jail. Her trial in September attracted intense media attention as details emerged of her business employing hundreds of call girls and a handful of young men operating out of up to 20 countries.

At her court appearance, she said she matched a client with one of her girls, but what happened later on, after the two had met, had a good meal and a few drinks, was entirely up to the two consenting adults. "Men and women in that situation, in a hotel room, do sometimes have sex," she told the court sitting in the Palais de Justice, prompting sniggers from some. She recalled her own experience as an escort in Germany when she feigned a headache after the client wanted to have sex.

French police claimed she operated a multi-million-pound prostitution empire running her affairs from multiple mobile phones and a laptop. Though MacDonald is believed to have homes in London, Athens and Milan, it was alleged she worked on her business from luxury hotels in France, the US, the UK, Austria and Italy. Investigators claimed she hired her staff out to her wealthy clientele, most of them American and Arab businessmen on trips to Europe, for more than £600 an hour. The revelations were a world away from her strict but privileged childhood in the Home Counties. She was educated at St Edward's School in Windsor, Berkshire, and nearby St Bernard's RC Convent in Slough. Later MacDonald continued her studies at Windsor High, now Windsor Girls' School. Her mother and I believed Margaret had a business in France manufacturing brochures


More:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3115844.stm