An alleged madam accused of running a prostitution ring for the power elite of Washington vowed yesterday to reveal dozens of high-profile names in what is shaping up to be the biggest sex scandal in the US capital for more than a decade.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who handed the telephone numbers of up to 15,000 clients to a US television network last week, said that she would identify as many well-known figures as possible to subpoena them as defence witnesses.

Ms Palfrey’s list of telephone numbers, that weighs in at 46lb (21kg) and has landed like a bombshell in political Washington, has already cost one deputy to Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, his job and thrust another official — the Pentagon adviser who coined the term “shock and awe” — to the heart of the scandal.

Another prominent figure named in court documents filed by Ms Palfrey is Dick Morris, a senior White House adviser to Bill Clinton who, in 1996, resigned over reports that he was seeing a prostitute.

The official who resigned abruptly on Friday night was Randall Tobias, a deputy secretary of state and President Bush’s co-ordinator for foreign aid. He masterminded a policy that required recipients of Aids assistance to condemn prostitution. Mr Tobias, 65 and married, quit after being contacted by ABC, which is in possession of Ms Palfrey’s telephone list.

He is said to have told ABC that he had called Pamela Martin & Associates, Ms Palfrey’s escort service, “to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage”, but not for sex.

Harlan Ullman, the military academic who devised the “shock and awe” bombing strategy used to presage the Iraq invasion, said that Ms Palfrey’s accusation “doesn’t deserve the dignity of a response”.

Ms Palfrey, 50, is charged with running a prostitution ring but she claims that it was a legal enterprise that provided “high-end” clients with services such as nude dancing and massage, not sex. She employed 132 “college-educated” women across the Washington area for 13 years from 1993 to 2006. They charged nearly $300 (£150) for 90 minutes of their time. She was convicted in California in 1991 for operating an illegal prostitution service and served 18 months in prison.

After a hearing yesterday to change her lawyers she emerged from court to say that she had handed over the telephone records to ABC so that the network could help her to track down names to use as defence witnesses. She said that she was “genuinely sorry” for Mr Tobias and his family but said that his claim that he never had sex with her escort girls was “extremely valuable exculpatory evidence”. She also expressed her dismay that he had not come forward earlier.

Montgomery Blair Sibley, Ms Palfrey’s lawyer, said that anyone found by ABC would be served with a subpoena to appear and testify under oath. He added: “Nobody is above the law in this country.”

Earlier Ms Palfrey had said in an interview: “I can state with unequivocal certainty this situation will be a very long and unpleasant one.” She added: “I’m sure as heck not going to federal prison . . . because I’m shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever.”

Mr Sibley said that he had already been contacted by lawyers for five Washington men asking if their clients’ names could be kept private. They will probably be among the millions tuning into ABC on Friday night when the network, and Ms Palfrey, are expected to reveal more names.

Times Recommends

• Tehran cannot live up to its rhetoric
• The new unicycle that will ‘change the world’
• We cannot wish away Iran’s bomb