The woman who made international headlines a decade ago as the soccer mom madam, accused of running an Upper East Side call girl ring for millionaires, said she thought she was running a legitimate practice and didn’t think she was doing anything wrong.
“I actually thought it was OK. And I thought I ran a business like Martha Stewart and there was nothing wrong with that,” said Anna Gristina, in her first TV interview since pleading guilty to promoting prostitution
Even 10 years after being the focus of a global media frenzy, Gristina remains unapologetic. The suburban soccer mom originally from Scotland was charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office with a single count of promoting prostitution, a charge that followed a multi-year investigation into her dealings with high-level clients she says she refused to name.
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“This case was never about prostitution, it was about politics,” Gristina said. “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 four months on Rikers Island as a result. In a jailhouse interview with the Today Show, she maintained she was just running a dating service, saying that it “was just like match.com.”
But a few months later, looking at a possible seven-year prison sentence, she pleaded guilty to that one prostitution count. She was sentenced to time served, along with probation.
“I was definitely bullied into the plea deal,” Gristina said.
The Manhattan DA’s office said at the time Gristina was responsible for her decisions and rented women’s bodies for profit — 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 said. “Nobody did anything they didn’t want to do. Nobody was manipulated or forced.”
The 55-year-old still lives in the same Upstate New York home, rescuing pigs. She’s at peace with her life, but bristles at being labelled a convicted felon.
“It ruined my life forever. There’s no coming back from it,” said Gristina, but added that she has no regrets, calling her enterprise the “cleanest the business has ever been ran.”
In speaking with NBC New York, Gristina revealed she ran the business for nearly 20 years — but not out of the Upper East Side apartment that the media cited as her brothel. That was just her crash pad when she had late business meetings.
She says the girls met clients in ritzy Manhattan apartments or hotels.
“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 cut, she said.
The relationship between the clients and the women was one “based on trust,” she said. She remains firm in not wanting to share the names of her former clients.
“To this day I still feel naming names is not the right thing to do,” Gristina said. “It defeats the purpose of who I am.”
To make ends meet, Gristina consulted on last year’s Lifetime movie, “The Soccer Mom Madam,” and has published children’s books under a fictitious name. She is also about to release a fiction novel called “Secret Desires of the One Percent.” No names, she says, but confirmed the stories really happened — and told News 4 that people should read between the lines.
“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 said.
As for her next work, it will be a nonfiction autobiography targeting politicians she claims used her as a pawn.
“I’m coming for you boys and you better look out,” she said. “And I will put you in the biography, name for name.”
Her attorneys have now filed papers in federal court seeking to have transcripts in her case — which previously were sealed — be released. She wants her conviction overturned and a new trial.
