'Millionaire Madam's' Son Asks Dad, 'What's Prostitution?'
The 9-year-old son of accused "millionaire madam" Anna Gristina has asked, " What's prostitution?" his father said in an exclusive interview with ABC News' New York City affiliate WABC on the hardships of raising the boy, who wants to know about his mother's legal troubles.
Kelvin Gorr's wife is still behind bars after she was arrested four months ago for allegedly running a $15 million sex empire in a small rent-stabilized apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Side, with prostitutes charging A-list clients up to $2,500 a night. She has denied the charges.
Gristina allegedly ran the business while raising four children, including 9-year-old Nicholas, in the family's home in Monroe, N.Y. Gristina's three older children are from previous marriages.
"He's asked certain questions, like, 'What's a madam?' 'What's prostitution?'" Gorr told WABC's Sarah Wallace of the couple's son. "I have to make something up. I don't want to lie to him, but I'm not going to tell what it is."
Gristina was allegedly caught on wiretaps and surveillance videos as part of a five-year investigation by the District Attorney's Public Corruption Unit, which probed the conduct of law enforcement and other officials and whether they had been protecting Gristina's alleged activities.
Prosecutors say they have Gristina on tape talking about her high-priced brothel, bragging to clients she had friends in law enforcement, so she would never get caught.
Authorities arrested Gristina Feb. 22 while she was meeting with a Morgan Stanley banker to discuss ways to expand her alleged business online, according to DNAinfo, a local Manhattan news site.
Gorr, however, says his wife is not a prostitute.
"A broker for dating, how's that?," Gorr said when asked to describe his wife. "I'm saying she wasn't a madam. I'm saying she was not involved in prostitution."
Gorr says that his wife's alleged clients were rich and well-known names and he wants her to reveal those names so that she can return home to their son.
Gristina's bail was set at $2 million because of her alleged connection to law enforcement officials. Gorr, a real estate agent, told WABC that is money the family does not have.
"She's just supposed to sit in [jail] while they hang out on their yachts, or their place in the Hamptons," Gore said of his wife's alleged clients. "They [law enforcement officials] laid out a list of names and they said, 'Tell me what you know about these people and we will let you go and she didn't do that.'"
"They [police] are absolutely squeezing her for names," he said.
Gorr admitted that he has written to some of his wife's clients asking for help, but they refused. Gristina was in court Thursday trying to get the bail lowered, but the judge has yet to make a decision.
"I don't know how much more he can take," Gorr said of son Nicholas. "Seeing him stress out the way he is, it makes it worse on me. It's pretty bad."