In Mass. brothel case, arguments made for privacy
Suspects seeking closed-door hearings
An attorney for two people suspected of buying sex at brothels in Cambridge and Watertown cited the public nature of his clients’ lives Monday in a motion urging the state’s highest court to order a magistrate to hold private hearings into whether there is enough evidence to bring criminal charges against them.
At the same time, attorneys for more than a dozen other “John Does” facing potential charges in the case emphasized the low profiles of their clients in their push to take the proceedings behind closed doors.
A clerk-magistrate is slated to hold hearings in Cambridge District Court to determine whether there is enough evidence to support a request by police to bring state criminal charges against 28 people allegedly linked to the brothel ring during a federal investigation. On Monday, there were a slew of filings to a single justice of the state Supreme Judicial Court in the case. In one, attorney Timothy R. Flaherty, who is representing “John Does” 16 and 17, said the public nature of his clients’ “activities, endeavors, and duties,” would mean their professional and personal lives would be “severely and irreparably harmed by a public airing of mere accusations that are unsupported by probable cause.”
The case captured national attention last fall when federal authorities charged three people accused of operating the prostitution ring that catered to wealthy clientele and said the client list included elected officials, government contractors with security clearances, and military officers.
In his filing Monday, Flaherty argued that being employed in any of those occupations in and of itself, including being an elected official, “does not create a legitimate public interest that outweighs the accused’s
right of privacy.”
Lawyers for 13 other “John Does” argued that there “is no legitimate public interest” in making such hearings public, that doing so violates their clients’ rights to procedural due process, and would result in their clients’ “unwarranted humiliation and embarrassment.”
“The accused are entitled to privacy at this early stage in the proceedings and public hearings should remain the exception rather than the rule,” wrote the attorneys.
The Globe reported earlier this month that 28 people accused of buying sex from the brothel ring that allegedly operated in Cambridge, Watertown, and the Washington, D.C., suburbs were summonsed to appear before a magistrate. The 28 people have not been publicly identified.
Last week, a single justice of Supreme Judicial Court postponed the hearings, without setting another date, and gave defense lawyers until 4 p.m. Monday to contest the recent decision to hold public hearings for those facing potential charges.
The hearings were initially slated to be held behind closed doors, but clerk-magistrate Sharon Shelfer Casey ruled last month to open them to the public after The Boston Globe, WBUR, and NBC-10 filed appeals. She found that while such hearings are generally held behind closed doors, “the court has recognized the very limited exception where legitimate public interest overweighs the individuals’ privacy rights.”
But, in Monday’s filings, attorneys for 13 “John Does” warned against assuming that all of the “John Does” fit into the categories that federal authorities detailed when they announced the case in a November press release.
They emphasized that their clients have not been charged with any crime and asserted that making the hearings public would turn the proceedings into public “walks of shame.”
“The Clerk-Magistrate failed to consider, let alone weigh, any of the obvious and logical countervailing life and family considerations which would dictate against a public show cause hearing in each case such as marital, family, physical and emotional health issues,” read Monday’s filing.
An attorney for yet another “John Doe,” identified in court documents as No. 15, stated in filings that “He is not an elected official, corporate executive, physician, government contractor, professor, attorney, scientist, or accountant. Indeed, he does not hold a government position and is not employed in a prominent position.”
In other Monday filings, some advocates argued the proceedings should be open to the public. An attorney for the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association and the New England First Amendment Coalition said in an amicus brief that the matter is “of significant public importance and interest.
“This sex-for-hire matter has attracted wide public attention and media coverage,” wrote the attorney, Peter J. Caruso. “The matter, unlike neighbor disputes and other minor matters of low public interest typically before a clerk-magistrate, cries out for open proceedings and open access to named individuals and evidence submitted during the hearing.”
However, Justice Frank Gaziano denied the organization’s motion to intervene in the case.
In earlier filings, lawyers for the group of 13 “John Does” said one of them is an attorney “who does not work for the government,” one is a doctor “working at a public hospital,” and one is a scientist “without ties to the government.”