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Police arrested 25-year-old Eddie Diaz of Hyde Park and 40-year-old Robert Horsley of Woburn, MA. as a result of an investigation by Tewksbury detectives and the F.B.I. in connection with a local hotel.
Corey Smith, 37, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Senior Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. to one count of transportation of a minor for purposes of prostitution and two counts of transportation of an individual with intent to engage in prostitution. The plea agreement, the parties recommend a sentence of about 12 years in prison and three years of supervised release.
William Coleman, 48, was charged with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and nine counts of sex trafficking in U.S. District Court in Springfield. He was arrested on Dec. 23 and has been held behind bars ever since.
Laws cracking down on human trafficking are on the books in all 50 states, but convictions are notoriously elusive, and state prosecutors haven’t come close to matching the success their federal counterparts have had in winning cases.
They are near pizza shops, coffee shops and schools — massage parlors that are offering more than just a massage. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey says they are in the business of selling sex.
An Attleboro, Mass. doctor Sujan Kayastha, 37 was in court Thursday on several charges, including trafficking of a person for sexual servitude, possession of child pornography, and two counts each of electronic enticement of a child for prostitution, paying a minor for sex and disseminating obscene matter to a child. The boy is 14 years old. Kayastha’s bail was set at only $75,000..
“The demand is what drives all of this,” said Nikki Bell, founder and CEO of LIFT Worcester, which works to empower survivors of sexual exploitation in central Massachusetts. “A pimp isn’t going to sell a woman if nobody’s going to buy her, right? You’re not going to stand on a corner if nobody’s going to come to pick you up, right? So, it’s very clear that’s where our efforts should be focused.”
For the women caught up in “the life,” it is a seedy and violent reality that can often be hidden or overlooked by the rest of society.
Chen Chen, one of nearly a dozen bodyworks spas in Worcester alone, had 59 reviews as of this past week at one so-called “john board” online, where massage-parlor customers describe the sexual services offered at spas across the country. Mentions of the place at another online board go back to 2013. The business operates behind drawn blinds in plain sight. A pink plastic flamingo marks the side entrance to the spa in the former Ricciardi Bros. contractors’ building, on a dead end bordered by a junkyard a block off Shrewsbury Street’s restaurant row. In the window is a light-up sign that reads, “OPEN.”
“Sexual exploitation in all of its forms is reprehensible,” Markey told the Globe’s Bob Hohler. “These allegations are very alarming, and I have confidence that the authorities will be investigating this matter fully to get to the truth.”
When state Rep. Vincent Pedone, D-Worcester, stepped up to Statehouse podium in 2006 to call for the regulation of massage therapy, he was quickly met by laughter and catcalls that filled the chamber and cut him short. The bill that passed that day — despite lawmakers’ laughter, but policymakers and society still don’t take massage, and the human traffickers who increasingly hide behind it, seriously.
Finding new and innovative ways to combat the demand for purchased sex, raise awareness to this nationwide epidemic, and provide safe environments for victims.
