Washington D.C.- The attorney for the woman accused of being the D.C. madam asked a federal judge yesterday to dismiss charges that his client ran an illegal prostitution ring in the Washington area.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey was the victim of selective prosecution and was indicted only after she publicly criticized federal prosecutors and threatened to seek an independent investigation of them from the attorney general, her attorney wrote in court filings.

“As can be verified by picking up the Yellow Pages, a Washingtonian magazine or The Washington Post, Ms. Palfrey owns and operates merely one of hundreds of escort services operating [in] the District of Columbia,” lawyer Preston Burton wrote. “There is evidence . . . that demonstrate[s] the realistic possibility that Ms. Palfrey was singled out for prosecution on the basis of her petition to the government requesting the appointment of Special Counsel.”

Burton also said that federal prosecutors should drop charges that Palfrey was engaged in racketeering and conspiracy, because they failed to produce evidence of such crimes. He further said that Palfrey cannot be held responsible under federal criminal law for consensual sex between adults that might have happened after she helped arrange escort services.