A Massachusetts Supreme Court judge has suspended hearings set in the cases against 28 people accused of paying for sex in a high-end brothel network while the courts address questions of what information will be made publicly available in the case.
The arrests of three people in connection with the brothel organization alleged to have been operating in Massachusetts and Virginia drew public attention, and acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy of Massachusetts previously said that the list of accused clients included politicians, professors, military officers and pharmaceutical executives. At this point, the names of the accused clients have yet to be released.
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The clerk magistrate hearings to determine probable cause were originally scheduled to be open to the public next week in Cambridge District Court, but those have been stayed until further notice. The move comes in response to a request from The Boston Globe and other media outlets to have the applications for criminal complaints made public.
These "show cause hearings," are typically closed to the public, a concept unique to Massachusetts' criminal justice system. It allows people accused of misdemeanors who haven't been arrested to have closed-door hearings with clerk magistrates. Usually the cases are only made public if the magistrate decides there is enough probable cause to approve the criminal charges.
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In this case, following media requests, Cambridge District Court Clerk-Magistrate Sharon Shelfer Casey had planned to allow the proceedings to be open to the public, citing public interest in the case.
The matter of what information will be made public has now been raised to the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, and defense attorneys are pushing back. In a motion, attorneys for 13 of the accused said their clients are not "powerful and elite," as described by the prosecution.
"They are private citizens who face adverse and embarrassing collateral consequences if their name and image are
published before they have the opportunity to face this case at a clerk’s hearing or in a court of law," the motion reads.
It is unclear if the public hearings will be rescheduled.
