BOSTON — Probable cause hearings that were halted last month for several people accused of paying for sex in a commercial sex ring that authorities said catered to “wealthy and well-connected clientele” will now be public, according to a Supreme Judicial Court ruling handed down Friday.
Elected officials, doctors, lawyers, professors, accountants, and military officers were reportedly among a group of “high-end” clients who paid for the illegal sex services at various locations in the Bay State and in Virginia.
It was unclear Friday when the public court hearings would be rescheduled.
In a ruling termed by his office to be his final judgement in this matter, Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Frank Gaziano vacated his earlier stay of the hearings, which were initially scheduled to be public.
“After review of the relevant case law, the District Court complaint standards, the impounded applications for complaint, the extensive pleadings, and the Clerk-Magistrate’s findings, I conclude that the Clerk-Magistrate’s decision to open the show cause hearings and deny pre-hearing access to the applications for complaint does not constitute an abuse of discretion or error of law,” Gaziano wrote in his ruling Friday.
“Opening the show cause hearings to the public, as she found, promotes transparency, accountability, and public confidence in the judiciary by demonstrating that each individual accused of these crimes, no matter their station in life, is treated equally,” Gaziano wrote.
“The Clerk-Magistrate, in her findings, articulated an adequate basis for denying access to the applications for complaint; the disclosure of extraneous personal information could create ‘collateral consequences for the individuals involved, and gratuitously expose non-public information that would otherwise remain private for those persons for whom no probable cause is established,’” Gaziano wrote.
”The stay of the underlying District Court proceedings is VACATED,” he wrote.
Gaziano earlier issued an interim order to stay the hearings, which had initially been scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 18 over a three-day period in the Cambridge District Court.
On Jan. 23, Gaziano issued an order for Cambridge District Court Clerk-Magistrate Sharon Shelfer Casey to respond to questions from the court about why the magistrate hearings of the alleged clients of the sex ring should be held in public. Three days later, Shelfer Casey filed her response to the order of remand and thereafter, the interveners filed their responses as well.
Shelfer Casey ruled in December that the court proceedings would be made public. In her Dec. 21, 2023 ruling, she wrote in part as it relates to this case, “The court has recognized the very limited exception where legitimate public interest overweighs the individuals’ privacy rights.”
A Cambridge police detective on Dec. 18, 2023 filed applications for criminal complaint against 28 people for sexual conduct with another person for a fee.
Attorneys for the alleged sex ring clients, only identified as “John Doe #1-17″ to date in court documents, had pushed to keep the court hearings private.
No names on the client list will be released until probable cause has been found, officials have said.
Also Friday, three people at the center of the commercial sex ring in Massachusetts and Virginia have been indicted by a federal grand jury, Acting U.S. Attorney Josh Levy said.
Authorities in November arrested Han “Hana” Lee, 41, of Cambridge; James Lee, 68, of Torrance, California, and Junmyung Lee, 30, of Dedham, who are all accused of running a “sophisticated” commercial sex network in Watertown, Cambridge, and in Virginia, where buyers paid up to $600 per hour for a wide array of advertised sex acts.
All three have each been indicted on one count of conspiracy to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce one or more individuals to travel in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution; and one count of money laundering conspiracy, Levy said in a statement.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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