A Scottish former New York madam has claimed she refused an offer to provide women for billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein. Anna Gristina, 54, spent four months on remand in the notorious Rikers Island prison in 2012 after she was caught in an undercover FBI sting.
Prosecutors alleged that Gristina, who grew up in Kirkliston, West Lothian, made £6 million from running a vice ring for affluent and influential men in New York's Upper East Side. She admitted a single charge of promoting prostitution and was sentenced to five years' probation and time served.
The mother-of-four, who insisted she ran a legitimate matchmaking service, has now said she once received a call from Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell to enquire about her services. Maxwell, 60, was jailed for 20 years in June after being found guilty of the enticement of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls for Epstein.
Gristina told how she refused to deal with Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting a sex trafficking trial, after hearing rumours he abused young girls.
Speaking to US website Radar Online, she said: "She called up from London to say she had a gentleman friend in Florida who likes company, but he likes younger girls and she heard I was very reputable and had the best models in the industry.
"I was at a hockey game with my kids when the call came in.
"Afterward, I did a little digging and my friend told me to stay away.
"If I had known more at the time I would have turned him in."
Gristina has always said she never forced anybody to have sex with clients.
She has claimed her guilty plea was "coerced" and is currently trying to have her conviction overturned.
Following her arrest, involving a sting with an undercover officer posing as a potential client, Gristina was held at Rikers Island and her bail was set at $2million.
She pleaded guilty in September 2012 to a felony count of promoting prostitution in exchange for a sentence of six months in jail, which amounted to time she had already served.
Manhattan prosecutors said her client list included New York's very wealthy and connected. None of her alleged clients were named publicly or charged, however, and she refused to hand over her contacts book.
She now lives quietly in a modest house in New York state, where she tends pigs and writes children's books.
Last year, a TV movie based on her story called Soccer Mom Madam was broadcast on US TV.
She was played by Jana Kramer, a Michigan-born country singer and actress best known in Britain for the teen drama One Tree Hill.
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