The shaken husband of the suburban mom charged with running an upper East Side brothel said Tuesday he is “heartbroken.”
“We are just a great family... and my wife means everything to me,” Kelvin Gorr told the Daily News as he sneaked down a Manhattan Supreme Court stairwell.
“I feel heartbroken,” added Gorr, who works in real estate and has been married to Anna Gristina for 10 years.
Gorr revealed his pain minutes after a judge struck down a defense request to reduce the 44-year-old Gristina’s bail.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan ordered Gristina to remain behind bars on $2 million bail after prosecutors argued she has friends in high places wishing for the case to go away.
“There are certain high wealth individuals, friends and business associates, who have an interest in not having this case go forward and would help her flee,” Assistant District Attorney Charles Linehan said.
Gristina’s defense lawyer, Richard Siracusa, countered that the accused high-end madam is not a flight risk, noting that she has four children and a slew of rescue animals kept at her home in upstate Orange County.
Siracusa said Gristina should be outfitted with an electronic ankle bracelet.
The current bail “puts her in a special category as someone who is a heinous criminal,” said Siracusa. “This is certainly far in excess of what would be necessary to keep her in the country.”
Gristina did not speak during the 15-minute hearing. Dressed in black pants and a black and white patterned wool jacket, with her blonde hair cropped close, the petite Gristina cut the image of a suburban soccer mom.
Her next court date is May 3.
Gristina has pleaded not guilty to charges of promoting prostitution.
Prosecutors say she ran a multi-million prostitution ring for 15 years and bragged that her contacts in law enforcement would protect her from arrest.
Gristina was busted last month after a five-year investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office that amassed up to 100 hours of audio and video recordings.
Prosecutors say Gristina even served her high-end clients underage girls.
Residents of the four-story building on E. 78th St. where Gristina was allegedly running the high-end escort service said they were shocked to hear it may have doubled as a brothel.
“I had no idea about this,” said tenant Sharon Volpe.
“I’ve never seen anyone weird come in or out,” added Volpe, a city teacher who said she gets up and gets home early.
While the majority of neighbors said they never noticed anything out of the ordinary, one man who lives in the apartment building next door said he had noticed a lot of strangers coming in and out.
"I never saw any regular tenants coming in, living there that I thought I knew," said Matt Schad, 65, a real estate broker who has lived next door to the building for 20 years.
“It always seemed to be new people, young men,” he said.
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