Accused Upper East Side madam Anna Gristina walked out of jail and into the arms of her family yesterday after finally scraping together the collateral for a $250,000 bail bond.
“Thank you, everybody,” Gristina told reporters as she walked out of Manhattan Criminal Court shortly after 9 p.m., pony-tailed and blinking in the camera lights, her arm locked tight around her youngest kid, 9-year-old Nick.
“I just can’t believe I’m home,” she exclaimed later, after entering her upstate house. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up tomorrow and I’ll be in Rikers.”
Gristina had been at Rikers Island since prosecutors pulled her screaming off a Midtown street in February, unable to make her initial bail of $2 million and struggling to post a bond even when appellate judges lowered it two weeks ago to a $250,000.
“Moments like that are why you go to law school.”
Pattis and Gristina faced the microphones briefly before the family drove off to their 200-acre pig-rescue farm in upstate Monroe.
“The nightmare of her bond ends today, and trial preparation begins tomorrow morning,” Pattis said.
Judelson — who has posted bonds for Lil Wayne and Dominique Strauss-Kahn — said Gristina’s bracelet will allow her to visit her lawyer in Connecticut and court in lower Manhattan.
“I don’t want her going to Queens, near any of the airports, but I feel she’s not a flight risk,” Judelson said. “She wants to be home with her 9-year-old.”
Gristina had been scrambling to put together a bail package since June 18, ever since booting her “family lawyer,” Peter Gleason, because she felt the $250,000 collateral he personally was offering to provide came with too many strings attached. They included his insistence on guiding her media and legal decisions, multiple sources have told The Post.
Gristina, who’s charged with promoting prostitution, almost posted bail later last week, but a package secured by collateral provided by some of her in-laws fell through.
The current bond is collateralized by properties owned by a friend of the family, Judelson said.
Prosecutors say Gristina’s Manhattan-based, $2,000-an-hour call-girl ring made $15 million over the last decade — and operated with the guidance and protection of powerful johns and unspecified members of law enforcement.
They’ve flipped her alleged money launderer and two of her alleged call girls to bolster their five-year investigation, which has yet to haul a single john or lawman to court.
Gristina counters that she ran a dating service for married men — and that prosecutors have promised to go easy if she rats on her well-placed collaborators or clients, which she has refused to do.
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