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{shortcode-8c0dd475ea3269f67b1a4d37d27db5cc232a1fc2}hen Cambridge City Councilor Paul F. Toner faced charges for patronizing a brothel network, the news took the city by surprise — but not the City Council.
Just 12 days into their current term, more than a year before the allegations against Toner became public, five of his colleagues on the Council were notified by the Boston Globe that he would be implicated in the case.
“We have confirmed that Cambridge City Councilor Paul Toner has been summonsed to court in connection with the Cambridge high end brothel case. Mr. Toner will face allegations of paying for sex,” Globe reporter Danny McDonald wrote in a Jan. 12, 2024, email to councilors.
Four days later, Mayor E. Denise Simmons — who received McDonald’s message along with four other council members — announced that a majority of Council committees would be chaired or co-chaired by Toner.
It would take more than a year for Cambridge residents to learn of Toner’s alleged involvement with the brothel, after the councilor joined a lawsuit in an attempt to keep initial hearings in the case private. But emails obtained through a public records request by The Crimson show that Simmons and at least four other councilors knew of the accusations against Toner in January 2024.
Simmons responded to the Globe’s inquiry less than two hours later — praising her working relationship with Toner, defending the presumption of innocence, and saying she would “wait to see how the legal process plays out” before publicly addressing whether he should resign.
The other four councilors who received the email — Sumbul Siddiqui, Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, Ayesha Wilson, and Joan F. Pickett, who died in August last year — did not respond to the Globe in writing, according to the records sent to The Crimson.
But city staff discussed how to respond to the news, recognizing it would be explosive when it broke.
“I get the sense he won’t acknowledge it until at least after the Globe story drops,” the city manager’s chief of staff, B. Kimmerman, wrote to city spokesperson Jeremy C. Warnick on January 16.
And on January 24, Siddiqui forwarded a copy of the Globe’s email to Toner.
“Just fyi,” she wrote. “This has been sent to everyone.”
But — as the Globe and other outlets fought in court to open early hearings in the case to the public — the paper did not send the allegations against Toner to print.
In response to an inquiry about why the piece was not published, Globe spokesperson Carla Kath said the paper’s journalists “adhere to a standard sourcing policy that, in most cases, requires verification from at least two independent sources with direct knowledge of a situation prior to publication.”
To most of the public, the details of the case remained hermetically sealed until Toner’s probable cause hearing on March 21, when a Massachusetts clerk magistrate determined he could face charges in the case for sexual conduct with a fee.
That day, Toner wrote through a spokesperson, Andrew M. Paven, that he had “caused pain for the people I care about most” and would be “forever sorry.” (Toner and Paven declined to comment for this article.)
And that evening, Toner defended his senior position on the Council to Paven in an email obtained by The Crimson through a records request.
“I have had more committee meetings on more important issues than any other Councillor and have effectively led the work of these committees despite this cloud hanging over my head,” Toner wrote. “I will definitely complete my term of office.”
Simmons released a statement two hours after Toner’s hearing, in which she wrote that she would not call for his resignation.
“I understand that allegations of this nature can raise serious concerns. Nonetheless, it is essential that we respect due process and uphold the presumption of innocence as the legal proceedings unfold,” she wrote.
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But the situation quickly boiled over. Toner faced fierce criticism from residents across the city, and two state representatives for Cambridge called on him to step down.
Amid the fallout, Simmons quietly removed his chairships after a meeting with Toner and Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern, where she asked McGovern to take over two of Toner’s positions. (McGovern, along with Patricia M. “Patty” Nolan ’80 and Burhan Azeem, was not contacted by the Globe last January, according to statements from the three councilors and the records given to The Crimson.)
“I met with the mayor and Councilor Toner, and the mayor told me what she was planning on doing and asked me if I had any issue chairing Ordinance on my own, and if I had any issue chairing Government Ops,” McGovern said in an interview. “I said no, and that was it.”
Wilson and Nolan also each took over a committee that had previously been chaired by Toner, but both declined to discuss whether or when they had met with Simmons to discuss the leadership change.
By April, a majority of the Council was calling for Toner’s resignation.
Simmons, Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy, and Councilor Ayesha Wilson are the only three members of the Council who have not called for Toner’s resignation. (Zusy was appointed to the Council on Sept. 20 following Pickett’s death and did not receive the initial Boston Globe inquiry.)
The three frequently side with Toner on controversial votes as members of the Council’s moderate wing. They are the only sitting council members who have ever received campaign contributions from Toner — $100 to each of them, according to data from the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, which only requires candidates to report donations above $50.
Paven declined to comment on Toner’s campaign contributions. Neal Alpert, Simmons’ chief of staff, wrote that donations in no way affect the mayor’s leadership.
“The Mayor does not—and will never—allow campaign contributions to influence how she conducts herself or the decisions that she makes in office,” he wrote. “Full stop.”
Though Toner no longer holds his chairships, he has continued to participate in regular Council duties. Along with his colleagues, he has weighed in on debates over Broadway Street bike lanes, carbon offsets, and Cambridge’s sanctuary city status.
Toner will appear in court for a pretrial hearing on July 29.
—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.
—Staff writer Jack B. Reardon can be reached at jack.reardon@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @JackBReardon.
