Latest news with #Toner
Boston Globe
16-05-2025
- Boston Globe
Cambridge city councilor, other men accused of buying sex through brothel ring appear in court, plead not guilty
Advertisement Toner, who has said 'When the government accuses somebody, you're presumed innocent, and the burden of production and persuasion always rests with the government beyond a reasonable doubt,' Flaherty said. The following men also pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge that carries a maximum sentence of one year in the county House of Correction and/or a $500 fine: Boya Zhou of West Roxbury allegedly arranged to buy sex in October 2023 and on several other occasions. He pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. His next court date was set for Aug. 1. Advertisement John Cascarano of Hingham allegedly sought commercial sex in October 2023 and engaged in sex for a fee through the alleged brothel ring 46 times, the prosecutor said. He pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. His next court date was set for Aug. 1. James Cusak Jr., of Boston, allegedly arranged to buy sex in March 2023 and engaged in sex for a fee 16 times through the alleged brothel ring, the prosecutor said. He pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. His next court date was set for July 22. Mitchell Rubenstein of Chestnut Hill allegedly arranged to buy sex in September 2023 through the alleged brothel ring. He pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. His next court date was set for July 22. Paul Grant of Charlestown allegedly agreed to buy sex through the alleged brothel ring in October 2023. He pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. His next court date was set for July 22. More men are expected to be arraigned when court resumes at 11 a.m. Friday. The men were allegedly identified as customers of the brothel ring, which shuttled The operators of the brothel The case drew national headlines after prosecutors said the operation's thorough bookkeeping allowed them to identify many of the men who had allegedly paid for sex. Advertisement A protracted legal fight ensued as the men identified as alleged customers asked the state's Supreme Judicial Court On May 6, lawyers for 25 men accused of being customers asked the court to postpone their arraignments. All were jointly denied by Judge David E. Frank. Authorities have said that the women working in the brothels were exploited by the ring's operators and the alleged clients. Many were Asian, spoke little English, and in some instances were living in the United States illegally. During the show-cause hearings that led to the arraignments , Cambridge Police Lieutenant Jarred Cabral described how the brothel ran. Text exchanges between its operators and alleged clients are quick and businesslike, with 'pleases,' 'thank yous,' and even a 'have a great day.' The men request certain women, often by stage name, agreeing to spend hundreds of dollars for a 'girlfriend experience' over the course of an hour. They typically called the payment a 'donation,' as is common in the sex trade, Cabral said. The men were directed to the entrance of an apartment complex and asked to send a text message to be buzzed in. They were not to linger in the hallway, the brothel operators warned; go straight to the room, but if there are other people around, hang back by the stairs or elevator. Once inside, don't make off-the-books deals with the women, or else you will be banned, they were instructed. This is a developing story. Nick Stoico can be reached at
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
2 high-profile names accused of paying for sex in Mass. brothel case due in court
Two high-profile men who allegedly paid for sex are due in court Friday in connection with an interstate commercial sex ring that ran high-end brothels in two Massachusetts communities. Cambridge City Councilor Paul F. Toner and James Cusack Jr., the former director of Oncology Labs at Massachusetts General Hospital, were identified among the brothel's suspected clients during public hearings in March. Toner, former president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, allegedly communicated with the 'brothel phone' a total of 432 times and paid for sex at least 13 times over roughly a seven-month period in 2023. Toner later apologized to his fellow councilors and to the community. 'You've all heard the news concerning my personal legal matters,' Toner said at a Cambridge City Council meeting. 'First, I'm ashamed to have my name associated with this case — I would like to apologize to my fellow councilors, my supporters, and the community for taking up the time of the council and the public discourse on this matter.' Cusack allegedly paid for sex 16 times in 2023. A hospital spokesperson said that Cusack's employment ended in May 2024. The attorneys for the Boston-area 'John Does' identified in the black books of the sophisticated interstate high-end brothel network had desperately tried to keep their identities private, arguing that revealing their names violates their privacy. Han Lee, the 42-year-old leader of the interstate commercial sex ring, was sentenced earlier this year to four years in prison followed by one year of supervised release. Toner and Cusack are due in court at 9 a.m. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Yahoo
Gun that went missing after buyback in 2023 linked to 3 separate Chicago shootings
CHICAGO — Gun buyback programs aim to take firearms off the streets by offering cash for guns, but one weapon has reportedly ended up back on the street, raising concerns. It's estimated that the Chicago Police Department has taken thousands of guns off the street. There's a system in place to log and destroy the guns that are turned in. The Illinois Answers Project and Sun Times led an investigation into what happened at a south side gun buyback in 2023 when the gun went missing. A group of reporters have been able to match the missing gun to shell casings at three different Chicago shootings. Casey Toner with the Illinois Answers Project says the internal affairs investigation into the gun was closed. 'They closed it and basically said there was a Sargeant responsible for overseeing it. That officer was given a one-day suspension,' Toner said. 'But that's not the case. Now we are learning the investigation is ongoing.' A short audio clip details part of the questioning by investigators trying to piece together how the .45 caliber Glock disappeared. Investigator: Again, in your opinion, you think it was lost in the station? Officer: Yes Investigator: Okay and when you found it, when you discovered the error, who did you tell? Officer: I told everyone in the office. I asked, 'where's the Glock?' Toner has unraveled details about the moments before the gun went missing. 'The investigation said there may have been a cleaning lady there as well, but it was almost all police officers,' Toner said. 'Those were the people that were processing the gun, those are the people who were admiring the gun when it came in.' Crystal Reynolds who spoke with the Sun Times discovered that the gun was used during a shooting outside her building. The bullets luckily missed her. 'I was kind of shocked and disappointed… how many more guns have been put on the street again,' Reynolds said in an interview with the Sun Times. It's not clear how the gun wound up back on the street. Since then, there have been some changes to the way guns are recorded once they are turned in. It may be some time before the full investigation into what happened is done. WGN did reach out to the Chicago Police Department about the Illinois Answers Project report that was released. They have not yet responded. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This Appears to Be Why Sam Altman Actually Got Fired by OpenAI
It's been nearly 18 months since OpenAI Sam Altman was unceremoniously sacked by the firm before being summarily reinstated just a few days later — and a new book claims to have the tea behind the stunning coup. In an excerpt from her forthcoming book about Altman, Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey revealed, based on dozens of interviews with insiders, that the November 2023 episode jokingly referred to as the "turkey-shoot clusterf*ck" was ultimately caused by power struggles, politicking, and an alleged pattern of untruths. The root of the debacle seems, per Hagey's excerpt, to have stemmed from a discovery in the summer of 2023, when an unidentified board member learned by chance that OpenAI's so-called "Startup Fund" was allegedly not disbursing funds to intended investors. After months of obfuscation, the board learned that Altman himself owned the fund — a finding, it seems, that began to unravel mounting doubts in the CEO's leadership. Not long after Altman's ownership of the fund came to light, OpenAI cofounder and ex-chief scientist Ilya Sutskever placed a rare call to fellow board member Helen Toner, a Georgetown AI safety researcher. Instead of being forthright with his thoughts, he suggested Toner talk to former chief technology officer Mira Murati — and those conversations apparently got the ball rolling in earnest. In a subsequent call, Murati regaled Toner with stories of the CEO's allegedly toxic managerial style. For weeks, the erstwhile CTO said, Altman insisted on bringing in a human resources representative during their one-on-one meetings until she promised not to share certain information with the board. Beyond the Startup Fund flap, the mercurial CEO was also accused, the book reports, of other major untruths. He once claimed, in a Slack screenshot Murati later shared with the board, that an OpenAI lawyer told him a specific ChatGPT product didn't need any safety review — but when she followed up, that attorney said he never made such an assertion. Altman also seemingly pushed ChatGPT out to the public in the first place without consulting the board ahead of time. Following that lore drop, Sutskever revealed his own, similar concerns to Toner. He'd been waiting for years, it seems, for the right moment to convince the board to fire his fellow cofounder amid professional tensions and differences in perspective — and the Startup Fund fiasco seemed to be the right time. After speaking in secret to the rest of the board — save for Altman and his right-hand man, OpenAI president Greg Brockman — the former chief scientist and Murati sent hefty PDF files full of related evidence to the sympathetic board members using, as the book notes, Gmail's self-destructing email function. During a furtive video call on November 16, four of the company's six board members — Sutskever, Toner, former tech founder Tasha McCauley, and Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo — voted to fire Altman and remove Brockman from the board. According to the author's sources, the board members who'd voted on the ouster told Sutskever they were concerned he may have been acting as a loyalty-testing spy. Ironically, the board's opaque insistence that Altman had been fired because he was not "consistently candid" was true of the governing body that issued it. Neither Murati, who'd been asked to step in as CEO, nor the board informed staff or the press of the behind-the-scenes machinations — and eventually, Altman loyalists began to view the firing, somewhat rightfully, as a coup. The rest, as they say, is history — though the power play at the root of Altman's failed ouster shows an alarming degree of discord at a company that claims to be radically changing the world. More on Altman: Sam Altman Whines That When You Become a Billionaire, "Everyone Hates You For Everything"
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Yahoo
Guns turned in to buybacks turn up at crime scenes, joint investigation shows
CHICAGO (WGN) — The Chicago Police Department has used gun buybacks to get thousands of firearms off the street, but at least two of them have resurfaced at crime scenes, a joint investigation between the Illinois Answers Project and the Chicago Sun-Times found. One high profile case involved a Glock that was turned in at a St. Sabina Church event in 2023. 'When that gun was on the desk, and it was surrounded by police officers, police officers were looking at it, and talking about good this Glock looked, and then the Glock disappeared. And then one year later it turned up in the hands of a teenaged boy, and that is the center of the story we wrote that takes a longer look at buybacks in Chicago,' reporter Casey Toner with the Illinois Answers Project said Friday on the WGN Evening News. A second instance involved a gun that was turned over in 2007 but appeared five years later at a deadly police shooting in Cicero. Toner said the Chicago Police Department has acknowledged the problem but did not say 'how they planned to improve the process.' Watch Toner's full conversation with WGN's Patrick Elwood and Lourdes Duarte in the video attached to this article. The investigation is published on the websites of the Illinois Answers Project and the Chicago Sun-Times. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
