USAID Chief Resigns Over "D.C. Madam" Link

(AP)  Randall Tobias, head of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, abruptly resigned Friday after his name surfaced in an investigation into a high-priced call-girl ring, said two people in a position to know the circumstances of his departure.

It was Tobias' own decision to resign, according to one of the people, who said the issue came up only in the past day or so. The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way.

Tobias submitted his resignation a day after he was interviewed by ABC News for an upcoming program about an alleged prostitution service run by the so-called D.C. Madam.

ABC reported on its Web site late Friday that Tobias confirmed that he had called the Pamela Martin and Associates escort service to have women come to his condo and give him massages. More recently, Tobias told the network, he has been using a service with Central American women.

Tobias, 65, who is married, told ABC News there had been "no sex" during the women's visits to his condo. His name was on a list of clients given to ABC by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who owns the escort service and has been charged with running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital.

U.S. officials would not confirm the information. A message left on Tobias' voice mail seeking comment was not returned.

Friday evening, the State Department put out a statement announcing Tobias' resignation, saying he "informed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today that he must step down as Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator effective immediately."

"He is returning to private life for personal reasons," the statement said.

Tobias held two titles: director of U.S. foreign assistance and administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development. His rank was equivalent to deputy secretary of state.

Rice named Tobias to head the two programs in January 2006, and on Wednesday was at the White House, where President Bush praised his efforts coordinating global AIDS relief. Tobias had been the White House's coordinator for global AIDS relief before taking the USAID post.

On Wednesday, Tobias attended a luncheon at the State Department with Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes and actress Angelina Jolie, who was in Washington pushing for more U.S. education aid for developing countries.

Before joining the administration, Tobias was a director and chairman of Eli Lilly and Co., the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company.

"The lives saved and made better around the globe by Randy's work at the State Department constitute a rich legacy on which he can look back with justifiable pride," department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday.

Tobias was the second public figure identified as a customer of Palfrey's service. Palfrey recently made good on her threat to identify high-profile clients, listing in court documents a military strategist known for his "shock and awe" combat theories.

Palfrey, 50, was indicted in March by a federal grand jury on charges of running the alleged call-girl ring from her home in Vallejo, Calif. She has denied the escort service engaged in prostitution.

Palfrey claimed she has 46 pounds of phone records involving clients. Efforts to reach her late Friday were unsuccessful. Montgomery Blair Sibley, an attorney who represents Palfrey in non-criminal cases, declined to comment.

In court records, prosecutors estimate that her business, Pamela Martin and Associates, generated more than $2 million in revenue over 13 years, with more than 130 women employed at various times to serve thousands of clients at $200 to $300 a session.

Palfrey had threatened to sell phone records that would identify 10,000 clients to pay for her criminal defense, but a federal judge ordered her not to release them. Palfrey, however, gave them to ABC News before the order took effect.

Prosecutors have accused Palfrey of trying to intimidate potential witnesses by exposing them publicly.

[ms_att_cont]

I am sad...

You came forward, and they still ripped you apart... one life slip and everyone who really believes in family... family values is pegged fools... it only takes one... it%u2019s a strange age we live in. Many people have given up on reaching for the higher goal.

[ms_att]

This one is from a real "company girl", %u201CInternational%u201D for real.

This really hurts, really hurts... Randy I don't know a lot of things but being a part of your regime indirectly was better days in my life and better days for my family, who took it real hard, became very disillusioned (literally) for losing the wonderful supportive management info-structure that allowed gals like me to balance family and work... yes, your leadership supported family values.

It all seemed to fall from the inside.

Since I have received regular beatings, obviously my marriage is over for a reason.

Without that type of support like putting the Moose on the Table. Women as I do not stand a chance additionally for the real reason God put us on this earth.

Worse is hearing that you were using the services of college girls.

Is that the only way girls, American women who go to college can make good money these days?

Want to believe this is a mistake.

The woman who runs Pamela Martin and Associates is a bad woman.

The duration that the media reports she has been doing this to Washington (from California), (now that is pretty messed up, too, how from one state they can really mess you up in another...) is the same duration I have missed the leadership I once knew, in leaders I looked up too, like you.

Why Randy? What happened?

[hhkeller]

Administration officials seem to be great at espousing high moral values while they lead a double life cheating on their wives, torturing prisoners and damaging the constitutional framework of the country with impunity.
This is must be what "BUSHWHACKED" means.

[sevenveils]

A diversion from more important matters at hand? Keep your eyes on the ball.

[retmilspouse]

cybergrace7,
And why do we the USA need to fund HIV prevention to the "ENTIRE COUNTRY OF BRAZIL"? We as a country are killers now? What a NUT.

[cybergrace7]

What a hypocrite. He denied money for HIV prevention for the ENTIRE COUNTRY OF BRAZIL because Brazilian health officials refused to promise not to do hiv health education to prostitutes!!! Tobias is not at all just an individual. By his being the AIDS Czar, and taking away previously administered HIV/AIDS prevention funds to countries that refused to help prostitutes he KILLED MANY PEOPLE THAT WOULD NOT HAVE DIED FROM AIDS!!! Tobias is a killer. Forget losing his job, he should know what the stigma of being a *** worker and not getting health care is like. He should not only lose his job (experience what discrimination against prostitutes is like in a teeny way), he should also learn what it is like to suffer from a socially constructed disease.

[cybergrace7]

What a hypocrite. He denied money for HIV prevention for the ENTIRE COUNTRY OF BRAZIL because Brazilian health officials refused to promise not to do hiv health education to prostitutes!!! Tobias is not at all just an individual. By his being the AIDS Czar, and taking away previously administered HIV/AIDS prevention funds to countries that refused to help prostitutes he KILLED MANY PEOPLE THAT WOULD NOT HAVE DIED FROM AIDS!!! Tobias is a killer. Forget losing his job, he should know what the stigma of being a *** worker and not getting health care is like. He should not only lose his job (experience what discrimination against prostitutes is like in a teeny way), he should also learn what it is like to suffer and die from a socially constructed disease. He will be in the lowest ring of hell in the afterlife.

[toldyouso21]

He should have stayed on. Like Wolfowitz and Gonzales--we are sure the White house would still have "full confidence in him" and stood by their decision. Right or wrong is not the criteria for keeping a job in Bushland. Bush is still a frat boy at heart--loyalty to the brotherhood--no matter what they do or...who they do it to--loyalty and NEVER, EVER admit you or any brother is wrong. Our country is being led by an immature, college frat boy.

[booyaw_77]

So ya turned them on.. Ok. So ya saw them at their worse. Ok. Why is that news? WHY IS THAT NEWS~?! Doncha know? Theres a bank robbery a block away? ALL POLITICIS IS LOCAL! Remember?

What de *** is so adult about being an adult?

You are my neurosis! CBS! YOU ARE MY SCHIZOPHRENIA!

[slipster01]

I am still waiting for ABC to publish the ENTIRE list of names it has. Let's see everyone on that list, not just this one politician.

I think they (ABC) are holding back because some of the presidential candidates have asked not to be identified in public that way.