D.C. Madam's mother asks that crime scene photos not be released

Blanche Palfrey, the mother of “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey, is asking a judge to stop the release of photos taken by the Tarpon Springs Police Department after her daughter’s suicide.

The younger Palfrey committed suicide in a shed outside her mother’s home in Tarpon Springs on May 1. Palfrey, who was 52 when she died, was facing six to eight years in federal prison after being convicted of racketeering and money laundering convictions while running a prostitution service.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Pinellas County Circuit Court, Serbo Simeoni, Blanche Palfrey’s attorney, argued “the gratuitous disclosure” of the photographs by Tarpon Springs police is “inappropriate, unacceptable and personally harmful” to Blanche Palfrey.

He said the disclosure constitutes an invasion of privacy, and “continuing intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

- Rita Farlow, Times staff writer