Photo: Kendall Buhl/WBZ NewsRadio
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The identities of 11 new alleged clients of a Boston-area brothel network were revealed during hearings at Cambridge District Court Friday on charges, including a Cambridge City Councilor.
Nearly all of the 28 accused of paying for sex have now been identified. Cambridge City Councilor Paul Toner along with Paul Grant, James Cusack Jr., Steven Riel, Nathaniel Welch, Jeffrey Henry, Frederick Rosenthal, Timothy Ackerson, Matthew Ellis Fulton, Howard Redmond, and Anurag Bajpayee all had hearings Friday for charges of sexual conduct for a fee. Twelve other alleged patrons had court dates last Friday.
The U.S. Attorney's Office first arrested three people accused of running the network back in November of 2023. The following February, Han Lee of Cambridge, Junmyung Lee of Dedham, and James Lee of Torrance, California all pleaded guilty to charges after they were indicted by a federal grand jury. Han Lee has since been sentenced to four years in prison.
The brothel ring was run out of apartments around Cambridge and Watertown along with parts of eastern Virginia involving women trafficked predominantly from Asia. The U.S. Attorney's Office said patrons of the network included “elected officials, high tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, military officers, government contractors that possess security clearances, professors, attorneys, scientists and accountants, among others.”
None of the defendants appeared in court Friday for the hearings while some appeared last week. The clerk magistrate said last week the court will issue warrants if they fail to appear at their arraignments in a few weeks time.
Stacy Reed Barnes is an attorney who advocates for survivors who was once one herself. She said she's unhappy many of the suspects have not appeared in court.
"If we get arrested our names get thrown in the newspaper," she said. "Sometimes they take our pictures and we're just put on blast all over the place, [being] re-exploited if you will. These guys were able to sidestep all of that."
Chantha Carter is a sex industry survivor advocate and said it's important to figure out the motives behind alleged patrons if they want to end the sex trade.Photo: Kendall Buhl/WBZ NewsRadio
During the hearings, Cambridge Police lieutenants read text messages between the alleged patrons and the operators of the sex ring. Sex industry survivor advocate Chantha Carter compared the texts to someone ordering a menu off of a delivery app, but reading these texts in court is an essential part of ending the sex trade.
"The only way to help is to understand the demand process," Carter said. "If you don't have buyers you don't have traffickers and if you don't have traffickers there's no need to find bodies to exploit."
WBZ's Kendall Buhl (@WBZKendall) reports.