A West Lothian 'vice queen' who was jailed in New York has launched a desperate bid to have her passport returned so she can come home.
Anna Gristina was given time behind bars in America for running an elite prostitution network.
She was convicted in 2012 and has been fighting to have her documents returned since then so she can visit Scotland to see her dying mother.
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Our sister title the Sunday Mail spoke to Anna, who lived a double life as a suburban mum, and she told of how her son had died and she was unable to be with him.
In the interview she accused the FBI of reneging on a deal that would allow her a passport in return for information on men who were forcing underage girls into prostitution.
She said: “I’m living my life in limbo – I can never leave the country to go and see my family because I’ll never get back in.
“My mum suffers from advanced pulmonary disease and every day she is scared to leave her house for fear of catching an infection because that would be her demise.
“I fear she’s going to die alone. My mum is the only person I haven’t lost – that’s why I’m fighting, so she doesn’t die alone.”
Dubbed the “Millionaire Madam” and “Soccer Mom Madam”, Anna, 54, ran her operation from New York’s exclusive Upper East Side while leading another life as a married mum.
She had a list of about 100 so-called high-class hookers who she would link up with mega-rich men – earning her up to £600 for every introduction.
But it all came crashing down when she was caught by an undercover cop in a July 2011 FBI sting.
She spent four months in notoriously tough Rikers Island prison before admitting one charge of promoting prostitution and was sentenced to five years’ probation and time served.
Anna, 54, said she could use a British passport to travel but her criminal conviction would block her from returning to America – where she’s lived for 38 years – and her husband Joe, children and two grandchildren.
The devastated mum of four also revealed how she recently lost her 27-year-old son Stefano in a car crash, making her more determined to be allowed a safe return to America if she left.
Breaking down in tears, she said: “My legal status is in limbo and it will stay that way. This is impacting my life every day.
“If I travelled on a British passport, I would never be able to get back into the US.
“My son just died two months ago, so if I flew to the UK, I could never come back to his grave. He was only 27."It was a car accident and he was in a coma for three months. I had to watch him die for six days until we turned off the machine.
“So, you see, leaving the United States is not an option any more. I’ve got three other children, two granddaughters and I have a husband.
"I can never leave again.”
Anna said she kept files on men who were running prostitution rings in the US with under-age girls.
She handed a file with more than 2600 names to the FBI with what she said was an agreement that they would remove any opposition to her having a US passport.
Anna, who stays in upstate New York, has a green card, which has allowed her to gain permanent residence in the US.She said: “It’s going on 10 years and the FBI never upheld their promise to me.
“I gave them the entire circuit of the under-agers that I had gathered evidence against for over 15 years.
“I was promised an American passport if evidence I gave them proved to be credible.
“I handed them everything, from people’s wills, hidden assets, pictures of young girls who had been exploited.
“I handed them the holy grail of evidence against all the traffickers. I gave them 2600 files of bad people.”
She said she has been asking about the passport constantly – as recently as just a few days ago.
Anna said she realised under-age girls were being abused when they would come to her in their early 20s.
She added: “When these little girls are taken by these monsters, they then find themselves not wanted any more when they hit their 20s or something and sometimes they would come through my door and say, ‘Oh, I worked for this guy when I was 15.’
“I would be like, ‘Excuse me, you’ve been in the business for six years and you’ve just turned 21?’
“So I learned about these people from girls who had been victims from very young ages.”
Anna said another option of getting a US passport would be the opportunity to overturn her conviction, which she has been trying to appeal.
She has insisted she ran a matchmaking service and never forced anyone to have sex with clients.
Last month she went to the US District Court in New York to have transcripts relating to her prosecution case and guilty plea “unsealed” but the case was dismissed by Judge Crotty.
It now continues in the Court of Appeal.
Anna asked us not to name her mum but said she is desperate to return to Scotland as she has missed the country she’s not been in since 1997.
She said: “I’ve missed my people, I love my people. I’d die for a Scottish mince pie, an Irn-Bru. All of this has been robbed from me.”
Although Anna hasn’t been back to Scotland since 1997, she saw family on holidays to Europe before her conviction.
She is about to publish a book on her previous life called The Secret Desires Of The 1%, which she said features funny and odd stories from the girls she worked with.
She’s also planning to release an autobiography next year.
Anna added: “I’m spending everything that I have, living on the poverty line, trying to fight so I can come home and see someone who is the closest to me.”
The Sunday Mail has made efforts to contact the FBI to seek comment on Anna’s passport issue.
