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Cambridge City Councilor Paul F. Toner and 13 other men pleaded not guilty to sexual conduct for a fee at Cambridge District Court on Friday morning, officially advancing their cases to trial.
More than 30 men have been charged for allegedly patronizing a high-end Cambridge brothel network, with 28 pleading not guilty in arraignments over the past two weeks. The hearings were the first time that most of the men appeared in court since being publicly named in March’s probable cause hearings.
The Friday hearings for each of the 14 men followed a similar pattern as the first arraignments last week — defendants waived a public reading of the police report, entered their pleas, and scheduled a pretrial date with Massachusetts District Court Judge David E. Frank.
The police reports were first made public in the March hearings, where Cambridge Police Department Lieutenant Jarred Cabral read similar findings for each of the 34 men.
The reports detailed text conversations between the alleged clients and the “brothel phone,” where the parties arranged appointments and payments. The majority of the clients paid more than $300 for a one-hour “girlfriend experience,” which Cabral said referred to spending more than an hour with one woman who “provides a more intimate experience,” including sex acts.
Timothy R. Flaherty, a lawyer who represents Toner and fellow defendant Paul E. Grant, filed a motion to compel discovery shortly before the Friday hearings. If the motion is approved by a judge, the prosecutors would be required to share evidence that has not yet been disclosed. The judge will rule on the motion at Toner’s pretrial hearing on July 29.
Flaherty advised Toner not to resign, saying he should be considered innocent despite mounting calls from Toner’s colleagues on the Council.
“My advice is: don’t resign,” Flaherty said outside of the courthouse, “You are presumed innocent in this country, and the allegations have to be supported by evidence to this point.”
Toner, like most of the defendants, is accused of frequently purchasing sex through the brothel network. He allegedly visited the brothel on 13 different dates, according to the police report.
Mitchell H. Rubenstein, an assistant professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, and James C. Cusack, an oncologist and former HMS professor, will appear for pretrial hearings on July 22 alongside 17 of the other alleged clients.
The six remaining defendants are scheduled to be arraigned May 30. All the men will appear in court on June 13, July 30, and August 1 to begin their criminal trials.
—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached matan.josephy@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.
—Staff writer Laurel M. Shugart can be reached at laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com. Follow them on X @laurelmshugart.
