My name is Vicky Gallas and I refer to myself as "the accused madam" for a couple of reasons. I never considered myself a madam and I simply provided business-end services. Each escort was an independent contractor. A jury of my peers agreed with me when I took the state of Florida to trial.
I was prosecuted on racketeering and RICO conspiracy charges and subsequently acquitted in 2003. I owned escort services for a decade in conservative Orlando, Florida.
As with the great majority of adult business related cases between the 1980s and 2008 in the Orlando area, my case involved serious police misconduct. The additional problem of my denouncing the telephone line blocks on escort service numbers in area resorts further propelled my prosecution.
They lost and I won, so I'm still here to tell the story, and it is a story that few have ever heard. I never spoke to anyone with the news prior to trial, and by the time it was over and I was acquitted, few were still interested.
Born and raised in Paris and other parts of Western Europe, I'll never get used to American perceptions of justice. Those arrested are guilty unless they prove themselves innocent, and even then this is often interpreted to mean that they got away with the alleged criminal activity. Such a system places all of the power in the hands of overzealous police and prosecutors.
