Cristina Warthen (Photo): Stanford Law Grad Turned World's Smartest Escort

By: Edecio Martinez
Topics: Daily Blotter

(CristinaWarthen.com)

Photo: Cristina Warthen via Screen Grab of Her Website.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (CBS/AP) Stanford University law school graduate Cristina Warthen will have to serve a year of home detention for failing to pay taxes on money she earned while working as a prostitute.

As part of a new plea deal with prosecutors, she'll also have to pay the government about $243,000, instead of the $313,000 established in a previous plea arrangement.

Prosecutors agreed to the lower amount when Cristina Warthen demonstrated she could not pay the full amount after her divorce from online entrepreneur David Warthen, the co-founder of the online search engine Ask Jeeves, now known as Ask.com.

Court papers obtained by the San Jose Mercury News show that once David Warthen's finances took a fall by last year's stock market collapse, he could no longer provide money to his now-ex-wife, who claims she's unemployed.

Cristina Warthen pleaded guilty in January that she failed to pay taxes on nearly $82,000 earned in 2003 as an escort in cities around the country, including New York, Chicago and Washington D.C.

She was ordered by a federal judge Monday to wear an electronic monitoring device while serving her sentence.

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