Prostitution establishment near Harvard University… List of customers, including city council members and CEOs, will be released

A Korean woman who ran a prostitution business in a luxury apartment near Harvard University was sentenced to four years in prison.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 7th, a Korean-American woman who ran a prostitution business in a luxury apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was sentenced to four years in prison and $5.5 million in forfeiture by a court on charges of conspiracy to engage in prostitution and money laundering.

Lee’s federal public defender appealed for leniency, saying, “Lee grew up poor and had a father who drank and abused.” He then claimed, “We paid more than half of the profits to sex trafficked women and allowed them to refuse services if they wanted.”

The customers who used the business are currently being prosecuted by Massachusetts authorities. Politicians, including biotech executives, military officers, doctors, lawyers, and Cambridge City Council members, were included in the client list. Prosecutors initially estimated that the prostitution business had more than 2,800 customers. However, only 28 men who are believed to have exchanged more than 400 text messages with prostitution business operators are currently being prosecuted.

A local court decided to disclose the personal information of business customers suspected of prostitution, saying, “The legitimate public interest in this case is more important than the defendant’s right to protect his privacy.” The court read their names in court. Some of the men charged refused to appear in court at the first hearing, while others sent lawyers.

The most controversial of the disclosed customers is Cambridge City Councilman Paul Toner. He is a frequent visitor to the business at least 12 times. After the revelation, he was deprived of five titles of chairman and co-chairperson by the city council last month. “I am ashamed to be involved in this incident,” Toner said. “I will not step down as a council member.” Others on the list include the CEO of a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment company and the CEO of a biotech company that is developing a new cancer treatment.

SAM KIM

US ASIA JOURNAL