A former attorney for "D.C. madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey kicked off a viral news speculation frenzy last week, claiming he possesses previously unreleased phone records that are "very relevant" to the presidential election and that he's prepared to risk jail to release them.

Conversations with people close to the high-profile escort case corroborate some claims from Montgomery Blair Sibley about the nature of documents he says he possesses but have added uncertainty as to whether a presidential candidate actually is identified.

Sibley says he has two sets of records that he wants court permission to release: a set of raw phone records from Palfrey's escort service with an estimated 5,000 unique numbers and a Verizon Wireless subpoena response with names, addresses and Social Security numbers of 815 of those callers.

On March 28, he offered the federal court system a soft two-week deadline to consider lifting a 2007 restraining order, lest he consider that order void and release records. He says he has loaded the records online with a 72-hour dead man's switch, as he considers his next step.

Sibley told U.S. News in a Thursday interview that the Verizon subpoena response contains the purported bombshell. "In and of itself, it contains it, but there's more to the story than just the response [and that additional information is in] the unknown 5,000," he says.

Two people who reviewed call records and other defense material on Palfrey's behalf, however, say they saw the Verizon subpoena response, which they and Sibley say arrived before a judge quashed demands for information from other carriers. The two sources collectively rule out any of the five major-party presidential candidates obviously appearing on that list.

One of the researchers, muckracking journalist and hypocrisy-hunting private eye Dan Moldea, says he shredded his copy but that he's certain four candidates were not on the subpoenaed list. He says he would remember the names of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (then a former congressman) and businessman Donald Trump.

Matt Janovic, who recalls Palfrey offering him a research gig after reading one of his blog posts, says he still has copies of case records stored in a filing cabinet in the basement of his Indiana home. Janovic says he searched a digital copy of the Verizon response, which he says contains names and detailed information about 815 phone numbers, and did not see Sen. Ted Cruz's name.

When told Moldea could not recall four candidates being named and that Janovic did not see Cruz's name, Sibley said: "I'm not going to confirm those guys have what I have. I don't think they have the entire response because I've always kept some back."

Sibley refused to rule in or out a presidential candidate being fingered by the subpoena response or there existing a more tangential bit of information. He denies duping the national media into providing him free publicity.

Sibley's claim to hold an election bombshell isn't necessarily voided by the seemingly incongruous accounts about the Verizon response, as the purportedly detailed subpoena response may contain information not appreciated at face value. And the pool of what Sibley says are about 5,000 previously unreleased unique phone numbers remains mysterious and potentially explosive.

Sibley said Thursday that 5,902 phone numbers are in the previously unreleased batch, likely including duplicates due to repeat callers.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, left, is pictured with Montgomery Blair Sibley outside the U.S. District Court in Washington on September 7, 2007.

Evan Vucci/AP

He says he can't recall particular dates they cover, though gaps in records posted online in 2007 appear to give hints. Sibley says he put disorganized records from Palfrey in two piles, one for mass release and another to hold back, without a particular focus on date ranges.

The escort service's call records first made a splash when Sibley and Palfrey released a large chunk in 2007 as she awaited trial. Moldea discovered a number belonging to Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who publicly apologized for undefined "very serious sins." The administrator of USAID was identified when the records were reviewed by ABC News. A nearly comprehensive set of released records was later digitized and made searchable on the website dcphonelist.com.

The precise number of unique callers in the first batch is unclear. Sibley says it contained about 10,000 numbers. Moldea recalls about 13,000.

The searchable site dcphonelist.com said it had digitized 5,901 unique numbers from the first batch -- curiously close to the 5,902 raw numbers Sibley in teasing as a second batch. But the seemingly damning similarity isn't, according to an anonymous operator of the digitized search site, who provided only his first name Igor. The site operator says by email some records released by Sibley in 2007 were not counted toward its tally, such as those from Cingular.

Call records released in 2007 and posted to DeborahJeanePalfrey,com, a site maintained by Sibley and others, contain many gaps – giving reason to believe there are indeed withheld phone records.

Eight one-month gaps appear to exist, each beginning just before Christmas, though a document published by WikiLeaks appears to cover the 2004-2005 gap. There's also a six-month break in records covering late 1995 and the first weeks of 1996. And there possibly are other gaps in records, as Palfrey used at least three phone carriers.

Many people connected to the Palfrey case were either unwilling or unable to comment on Sibley's claims about the Verizon subpoena response and claim to have unreleased phone records.

Palfrey dismissed Sibley from her criminal case in January 2008, and Sibley says he provided all physical copies of records to attorney Preston Burton, who represented Palfrey at trial.

Burton did not respond to repeated requests for comment on his recollection of the records.

A person close to the post-Sibley defense team who asked not to be identified, however, says they directly observed all physical copies of Palfrey's phone records shredded after a civil case ended and that digital copies of spreadsheets and other documents were wiped. Without commenting directly on the nature of any document, they questioned whether Verizon actually would have supplied Social Security numbers (Moldea says he can't remember if Social Security numbers were included, but Janovic backs Sibley's claim that they were).

Short conversations with three attorneys who worked for the prosecution did not shine light on the purported records. William Cowden, now in private practice, said he can't recall with specificity records from nearly a decade ago. Daniel Butler, who still works for the Justice Department, said he could not speak without authorization, which a department spokesman declined to grant. Kate Connelly, now an attorney with Northrop Grumman, declined to comment.

Palfrey was convicted of money laundering and other crimes in May 2008 and died of apparent suicide two weeks later. Sibley says he has a right to possess call records given his continuing role in the civil case and says he also remained an attorney for Palfrey's mother's and was retained to work on Palfrey's criminal appeal.

Sibley's right to hold the records, however, has derailed his legal bid to lift the 2007 restraining order, which was issued when he threatened to release records ahead of trial. Then-U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts in January instructed a clerk not to accept Sibley's motion requesting reconsideration of the restraining order, writing: "Why Sibley would have possession of subpoenaed records in a case from which he has been terminated and why he would not instead have turned all copies of them over to the defendant's continuing counsel of record is not set forth in the motion."

Sibley says Roberts – who resigned last month on the day he was sued for an alleged past sexual assault – wrongly assumed he had no right to the records, but his bid for a day in court has gone nowhere so far.

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts on Monday refused Sibley's request for intervention. Sibley appealed to Justice Clarence Thomas, hoping for a different ruling on whether the federal District Court in the nation's capital must accept a motion for reconsideration of the 2007 order. The D.C. Circuit federal appeals court has not acted on an appeal.

Sibley told U.S. News last week that the records he seeks to release already are posted to a non-public website. A link to the website will be emailed to his press list, Sibley says, if he does not reset a 72-hour timer, a safeguard to disincentivize acts of violence by former Palfrey clients.

The threatened wholesale release does not sit well with Moldea and Janovic, who say the records certainly name or identify by phone number many people with absolutely no connection to the escort service, such as plumbers, florists or even the odd wrong number. Moldea adds it's his personal philosophy to only expose hypocritical people in positions of power and that most names would not meet that standard.

Janovic, who parted ways with Palfrey after her dismissal of Sibley, says he never signed an agreement barring him from releasing the Palfrey records he possesses and says nobody asked for him to return them. He declined, however, to share them for this story. He says he's primarily disinclined to release them because of the potential effect on people without public profiles.

It's unclear if Janovic or other people who may have copies of at least some Palfrey records fall under the 2007 gag order's command that Palfrey "and her agents and attorneys ... shall not release, further distribute, or otherwise provide to any person or organization the phone records" of Palfrey or her business.

Janovic says thinking about the Palfrey case is somewhat traumatic for him, as he worried for nearly a year about Palfrey's mental stability and whether she would kill herself. He currently cares for his mother and plans to begin a career as a teacher,

Moldea's sleuthing is well-known, including his work for Hustler publisher Larry Flynt that outed House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston, then a Louisiana Republican congressman, for having an affair, which came out during impeachment proceedings against Democratic President Bill Clinton for lying about an affair. Like Janovic, Moldea says he has no doubt that Palfrey committed suicide and, in fact, taped her saying she would rather kill herself than return to jail.

Sibley is not currently licensed to practice law as the result of a 2008 suspension in Florida for filing "vexatious and meritless" lawsuits against judges and for a child support payment dispute, for which he faced reciprocal discipline in D.C.

Moldea says he met with Sibley after his attention-commanding claims last week and believes the colorful litigator does have information relevant to the presidential campaign. "I don't know what it is. It may be convoluted," he says. But he hopes Sibley thinks twice before violating the restraining order to release whatever he has.