Sydney Biddle Barrows, the "Mayflower Madame"

In a ten-minute hearing on July 19, 1985, in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Sydney Biddle Barrows, dubbed the "Mayflower Madame" for her patrician bloodline, pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of promoting prostitution. This plea followed a week of negotiations between Barrows's lawyers and the prosecutors after an order by Judge Brenda Soloff would have required information about each charge to be made public. Barrows was fined $5,000 for the crime.