'Monroe Madam' returns to Orange County home

Wearing an electronic ankle bracelet, the accused "Monroe Madam" returned to her four children and prized potbellied pigs at her Orange County home late Tuesday night after 19 weeks in Rikers Island.

When she arrived, one of her sons was waiting for her at the bottom of their long driveway on Lakes Road.

Two hours earlier, Anna Gristina had been mobbed by news photographers as she walked out of Manhattan Criminal Court flanked by her husband, lawyer and a 9-year-old son, who brought a bouquet of roses for his mother.

"Thank you, everybody -- I just want to be with my family tonight, please," she said as they made their way through the blinding camera flashes before driving off in a gray Range Rover.

Gristina was freed after an anonymous family member put up property toward a $250,000 bail package. She was arrested in February on charges of running a prostitution ring from an Upper East Side apartment, allegedly catering to well-heeled financiers and lawyers.

In an affidavit filed with a Manhattan judge, her attorney, Norman Pattis, claims prosecutors tried to get Gristina to give up information about five "prominent" Manhattan male clients -- a banker, a lawyer and a financier among them.

"I have nothing to give them," Gristina told the "Today" show during a jailhouse interview earlier in June. "That's why I'm still here."

Gristina was freed after an appeals court decision reducing her $2 million bail to $250,000, with a cash option of $125,000. Her bail bondsman, Ira Judelson, said Gristina's family put up property for her bond, but neither he nor Pattis would give specifics. Manhattan prosecutors declined to comment.

As part of her bail package, Gristina must report to Judelson once a week and wear an ankle bracelet that will monitor her every move. She also will have to put up as collateral some family real estate and must surrender her passport.

The Scottish immigrant has pleaded not guilty and faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.

During her on-air talk with "Today" show host Matt Lauer, Gristina had tears in her eyes as she described a recent jailhouse visit from the 9-year-old son.

"He cried the whole time and begged to stay with me," she told Lauer.

Gristina insisted there was no hanky-panky going on in the small apartment she rented in Manhattan. Instead, she said, she kept it because her daughter was considering attending Columbia University.

Gristina -- whose website boasts of her work taking in unwanted potbellied pigs -- claims she was inspired to create a dating service after watching the television show "Millionaire Matchmaker."

Pattis cut Lauer off when he asked Gristina whether her female employees would be paid to have sex with men. Gristina described her dating service as "very much like Match.com."

Gristina told Lauer that her family has suffered since her arrest.

"It's devastating," she said. "My husband is having a hard time holding it all together."