The revelations about 44-year-old Anna Gristina continue to fascinate New Yorkers. Not long ago, her friends thought of her as a homely housewife and mother of four, says Tom Leonard in the Daily Mail. She told relations in her native Scotland that she worked in internet marketing with a sideline as an estate agent. In reality, if prosecutors are to be believed, she was madam of a high-end brothel in Manhattan that netted her $10m over 15 years.
According to one of the brothel's former girls', her clientele included sports club owners, chief executives, members of the boards of hospitals and art institutions, and even royalty. Although she denies providing prostitutes, prosecutors say Gristina ran 50 women, many of them East Europeans, from a brothel above an Indian restaurant in Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Among the prostitutes, says Leonard, were Playboy and Penthouse models, and they were all carefully "screened". Former prostitutes say Gristina was "choosy", turning away drug users and "sending an assistant to check they passed muster with their clothes off". Nor were these prostitutes cheap: prices ranged from $500 to $1,300 an hour. But by all accounts, she was a good boss.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
As her New York lawyer has been quick to point out, Gristina's story, even if it ends in a prison cell, "is classic America dream stuff: the European immigrant who fled misery and poverty to start a new and affluent life in the New World".
Adopted, she was raised in a poor household in Kirkliston, outside Edinburgh. When she was 15, her father died and she emigrated to America. "She's a kid who came from Scotland with just the clothes on her back and made her way in this country," says her lawyer, Peter Gleason.
Her first two marriages the second to an Italian immigrant named Dario Gristina, who was rich and well-connected ended in divorce. Ten years ago, she married Kelvin Gorr, a former estate agent. The couple live in a ranch-style house on a dirt track in Monroe, a small working-class town half an hour's drive from New York. There they keep a range of animals. Prosecutors are having trouble finding Gristina's assets, allegedly hidden in multiple bank accounts. "If it's true, she has fooled everyone, even her closest friends," said one who has known Gristina since their schooldays in Scotland.
Council bosses top PM pay
The average council chief is still paid more than the prime minister, according to The Daily Telegraph, with one in 20 having earned more than £200,000 last year. But at last, CEO pay is falling.
Income Data Services, which surveyed CEOs at 314 local authorities, found that fewer than 5% got a bonus, and this averaged only 0.8%. The average total pay package of council heads last year was £146,957. David Cameron's salary is £142,500. As for the lowest-paid CEO, that distinction goes to Adrian Dyer of West Somerset, whose total cash earnings were a modest £62,591.
Tabloid money... David Miliband "trousered" £70,000 for three days' work
"We spent millions in Libya, replacing the lunatic Gaddafi with a bunch of mindless, ungrateful thugs who hate our guts and who cheerfully desecrate the graves of our war dead," says Tony Parsons in the Daily Mirror. "So that worked out quite well.
Two hundred graves of British, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand servicemen who died fighting Rommel's Afrika Korps were desecrated by Libyans whose freedom we bankrolled.
You can't help noticing that the graves were unmolested during the Gaddafi years even when we were bombing his tent and killing his children. The graves of our war dead have been defiled by Libyans who would still be licking Gaddafi's boots if it was not for British Tomahawk missiles (a snip at £800,000 each). Does this mean we get our money back?"
"I've noticed that benefits cheats are using the expression I have good days and bad days', as they explain outside court why they claimed thousands in disability payments," says Kelvin MacKenzie in the Daily Mail. "The phrase was used by a chap from Devon, who played in goal while fiddling £6,316 over a bad back.
A lady from Wales used it to explain how, despite her debilitating bad back, she could go on a dangerous big dipper at the fun fair. I think I now know the basis of the phrase. A good day' is when they pocket our money. A bad day' is when they get nicked."
David Miliband was paid £70,000 for three days' work for a US venture capital firm dedicated to doing "whatever it takes to commercialise big opportunities", says Paul Routledge in the Daily Mirror. He gets £75,000 a year for two weeks' work as a director of Sunderland FC.
"He trousered £64,000 for advising' an Arab state on a four-day conference and picked up £35,000 for making two speeches to businessmen. No wonder Blair's not-quite-heir is in no hurry to help his little brother... No money in that."
