The last of three hearings concluded Friday in Cambridge District court, with 11 men accused of paying for sex at what federal investigators describe as sophisticated high-end brothels in Cambridge and Watertown. The enterprise extended to the suburbs of Washington D.C. in Virginia, and in total 34 men have been named in the case.
On Friday, Clerk Magistrate Sharon Casey issued complaints against a Chestnut Hill dermatologist, a Lexington orthodontist, a Cambridge based actor and eight other men. None of the men showed up in court on Friday.
Other individuals cited reside in Brookline, Woburn, Malden, Wakefield and Needham. Though there were thousands of customers of the brothel ring, federal investigators and state prosecutors zeroed in on men who exchanged more than one hundred text messages with the brothel operators and were repeat buyers.
With one exception — Cambridge City Councilor, Paul Toner — GBH News decided not to identify the men because they do not appear to be people of prominence and they are facing misdemeanor charges.
Morgan Bae of the Emma Coalition, a survivor-led, statewide umbrella organization that advocates on behalf of prostituted people, told reporters that making the names public served as a major deterrence for others.
“It shows that there is a need for accountability and by getting these names public it may stop someone else from doing this,” Bae said.
In court, Cambridge police Lt. Jarred Cabral, read from a statement from officers assigned to the Homeland Security Task Force that described the stage names of women, the kind of sex requested by buyers, and the surveillance that led to their arrests.
Audra Doody, a formerly prostituted woman who works with Safe Exit in Worcester sat through the court testimony shaking her head furiously.
Speaking with reporters outside she said she considered the hearings to be “a form of justice.”
“It’s showing that this state is not going to tolerate people buying people, and that just sends a clear message in itself,” Doody said. “If that message gets out maybe traffickers and pimps wouldn’t sell young vulnerable girls. My pimp wouldn’t have sold me if men didn’t buy me.”
The prostituted women assigned to the brothels are being treated as victims and no charges have been brought against them. According to the government, they were “persuaded, induced and enticed” to provide sex for a fee in luxury apartment buildings in Massachusetts and the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
The operation was busted in November 2023 and three men designated as top-level pimps by the government were arrested. All have pleaded guilty. Last week the leader of the group, Han “Hana” Lee, 42, was sentenced to four years in federal prison.
