You have to won­der what else is hid­ing under this rock:

The Wash­ing­ton Post
Long­time aide to Sen. Thad Cochran charged with drug pos­ses­sion

By Spencer S. Hsu and Mike DeBo­nis

April 24

A long­time per­son­al aide to Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions Chair­man Sen. Thad Cochran (R‑Miss.) was charged Thurs­day in Wash­ing­ton with pos­sess­ing metham­phet­a­mine with intent to dis­trib­ute.

Fred W. Pagan, who is 49 and earned $160,000 last year as Cochran’s per­son­al assis­tant and office admin­is­tra­tor, was charged by crim­i­nal com­plaint in U.S. Dis­trict Court for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia.

...

Lat­er Fri­day, a grand jury indict­ed Pagan on one count of pos­ses­sion with intent to dis­trib­ute 50 grams or more of metham­phet­a­mine, which is pun­ish­able by a prison sen­tence of at least five and up to 40 years, and one count of impor­ta­tion of a con­trolled sub­stance, pun­ish­able by up to 20 years in prison. His next court date is May 14.

Cochran’s office said in a state­ment Fri­day evening that the sen­a­tor is “dis­turbed and deeply sad­dened” by the mat­ter and that Pagan is sus­pend­ed of all duties pend­ing the out­come of the case.

Pagan is the third-high­est-paid mem­ber on Cochran’s staff of rough­ly 30, accord­ing to con­gres­sion­al records avail­able at Legistorm.com. He is reg­is­tered to vote as a Demo­c­rat, accord­ing to D.C. records.

Accord­ing to an affi­davit filed with the court, U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion offi­cers detect­ed the drug gam­ma-buty­ro­lac­tone, or GBL, in a DHL pack­age from Chi­na addressed to Pagan’s home in North­west Wash­ing­ton on April 9.

GBL, said to build mus­cle, enhance love-mak­ing abil­i­ties and aid sleep, breaks down into the “date rape” par­ty drug gam­ma hydrox­y­bu­tyrate, or GHB. Both are con­trolled sub­stances. The pack­age, addressed to “Longevi­ty Con­cepts LNC, Fred Pagan,” weighed about 1.1 kilo­grams and was inter­cept­ed at a DHL facil­i­ty in Cincin­nati, Waugh said in an affi­davit.

On April 23, D.C. police detec­tives and agents with the U.S. Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforcement’s Home­land Secu­ri­ty Inves­ti­ga­tions arm served an ear­ly morn­ing search war­rant on Pagan’s home in the 5700 block of Col­orado Avenue NWh. They found plas­tic bags with about 181.5 grams of a sub­stance that test­ed pos­i­tive for metham­phet­a­mine, accord­ing to Spe­cial Agent Mark Waugh of the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty.

The ICE agent said Pagan stat­ed he had received three pre­vi­ous ship­ments of GBL and knew it was ille­gal. Pagan said his dis­trib­u­tor had him receive the metham­phet­a­mine from Cal­i­for­nia to avoid detec­tion, Waugh said, adding that “Pagan stat­ed that he intend­ed to dis­trib­ute both the GBL and metham­phet­a­mine in exchange for sex­u­al favors.”

In a 2006 pro­file in the North­east Mis­sis­sip­pi Dai­ly Jour­nal, a for­mer teacher of Pagan’s wrote that Pagan has worked for Cochran since Pagan was 16 years old. Pagan report­ed­ly com­plet­ed high school stud­ies through cor­re­spon­dence and did not attend col­lege, work­ing as a page, then intern and office man­ag­er.

Here’s one of those sto­ries that’s worth keep­ing an eye on. It’s actu­al­ly two sep­a­rate sto­ries, both with echos of ‘DC Madam’ Deb­o­rah Jean Pal­frey’s time­ly ‘sui­cide’ . It’s unclear if both of these sto­ries involve the same under­ly­ing sto­ry, but either way, it’s poten­tial­ly a big deal. Like ‘Jef­frey Epstein-style elite black­mail’ big:

First, some­one very inter­est­ing just got named in a sex traf­fick­ing law­suit: Tram­mel Crow Jr., broth­er of bil­lion­aire Har­lan Crow. Recall how Har­lan Crow has man­aged to become Clarence Thomas’s sug­ar dad­dy in recent decades, includ­ing all-expens­es-paid lav­ish trips and even the pur­chase of Thomas’s child­hood home so it could be turned into a muse­um. Tram­mel Crow is one of more than 100 peo­ple and busi­ness that took part in the alleged traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion, accord­ing to the law­suit brought by two of the vic­tims who claim they were drugged, phys­i­cal­ly abused, threat­ened, and forced to per­form sex­u­al acts. Crow is said to have played a key role in pro­vid­ing financ­ing for the scheme. That’s all we real­ly know so far, although it appears the judge in the case has already denied requests by Crow and oth­ers to have the case dis­missed, find­ing that the women had pro­vid­ed enough clear evi­dence to allow the case to pro­ceed. This isn’t just a set of wild unfound­ed accu­sa­tions.

And that brings us to the sec­ond sto­ry. Pos­si­bly relat­ed, but per­haps involv­ing an entire­ly sep­a­rate elite sex traf­fick­ing ring: the Depart­ment of Jus­tice (DOJ) announced three arrests a cou­ple of weeks ago in a case involv­ing a ‘high-end broth­el net­work’. While no clients of the net­work have been named yet, we are told that pos­si­bly hun­dreds of clients used the ser­vice and their pro­fes­sions includ­ed doc­tors, lawyers, accoun­tants, elect­ed offi­cials, exec­u­tives of high tech com­pa­nies and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, mil­i­tary offi­cers, gov­ern­ment con­trac­tors, pro­fes­sors, sci­en­tists. Prospec­tive clients had to fill out a screen­ing form that includ­ed hand­ing over their driver’s license pho­tos, their employ­er infor­ma­tion, cred­it card infor­ma­tion. In oth­er words, this was a black­mail trea­sure trove. A hope­ful­ly-not-under-aged Jef­frey Epstein

So could these the same elite sex traf­fick­ing oper­a­tions? Or did we just hap­pen to get news about two entire­ly sep­a­rate elite sex traf­fick­ing oper­a­tions this month? That’s all yet to be deter­mined. But it’s worth noth­ing that the three men charged — Han Lee, 41, of Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts; James Lee, 68, of Tor­rance, Cal­i­for­nia; and Jun­myung Lee, 30, of Ded­ham, Mass­a­chu­setts — have been charged with con­spir­a­cy to coerce and entice to trav­el to engage in ille­gal sex­u­al activ­i­ty. That at least sounds sim­i­lar to the phys­i­cal abuse and coer­cion described by the women bring­ing the suit against Tram­mel Crow Jr. A suit alleg­ing he played a key role in financ­ing the whole oper­a­tion.

So the broth­er of the bil­lion­aire who made him­self into a Supreme Court sug­ar dad­dy is accused of play­ing a key financ­ing role in an elite pros­ti­tu­tion ring with obvi­ous major black­mail poten­tial. And that was two weeks after the DOJ announced three arrests an elite pros­ti­tu­tion ring ser­vic­ing elect­ed offi­cials and mil­i­tary offi­cers. What are we look­ing at here?:

Bloomberg

Texas Phil­an­thropist Tram­mell Crow to Face Sex Traf­fick­ing Suit

* Judge denies Crow’s request to dis­miss claims of sor­did ring
* Broth­er Har­lan Crow, asso­ciate of Clarence Thomas, not in suit

By Zoe Till­man and Emi­ly Birn­baum
Novem­ber 21, 2023 at 11:17 AM CST

Tram­mell Crow Jr., a Texas phil­an­thropist and the broth­er of Repub­li­can mega-donor Har­lan Crow, must face a law­suit that accus­es him of run­ning and par­tic­i­pat­ing in a sex traf­fick­ing ring, a judge ruled.

Tram­mell Crow is one of more than 100 peo­ple and busi­ness­es that took part in the alleged traf­fick­ing and rack­e­teer­ing enter­prise, accord­ing to the suit, brought by two women who say they were its vic­tims. The two claim they were drugged, phys­i­cal­ly abused, threat­ened and forced to per­form sex acts, and that Crow played a key role in pro­vid­ing financ­ing for the scheme.

On Mon­day US Dis­trict Judge Fred Biery in San Anto­nio denied requests by Crow and oth­er defen­dants to dis­miss the case, orig­i­nal­ly filed a year ago in fed­er­al court in Los Ange­les. He found that the women had pre­sent­ed clear enough descrip­tions of their claims for now, with­out rul­ing on the claims’ mer­its.

...

‘Bla­tant­ly False’

Tram­mell Crow has denied the alle­ga­tions in court fil­ings. On Tues­day his lawyers said in a state­ment that the rul­ing was “dis­ap­point­ing but not a sur­prise giv­en the court at this ear­ly stage is pro­hib­it­ed from ques­tion­ing the verac­i­ty” of the claims.

“We con­tin­ue to dis­pute the alle­ga­tions and believe the plain­tiffs’ sto­ry paints a pic­ture of numer­ous trou­bled and bro­ken domes­tic rela­tion­ships,” they said. “The account of events link­ing our client to this sto­ry is absurd and bla­tant­ly false. We’re cer­tain the evi­dence will make that clear in future legal pro­ceed­ings.”

John Balestriere, a lawyer for the women, said in a state­ment that they were “extreme­ly pleased” with the rul­ing and looked for­ward to prepar­ing for tri­al, includ­ing gath­er­ing evi­dence and depos­ing the defen­dants.

In a sep­a­rate order Mon­day, Biery said it appeared the women hadn’t served the com­plaint on oth­er defen­dants, includ­ing more than 100 unnamed peo­ple and com­pa­nies they say par­tic­i­pat­ed in the alleged scheme. The judge gave them until Dec. 4 to explain why the claims against those defen­dants shouldn’t be tossed out.

Scruti­ny of Broth­er

Har­lan Crow has faced intense scruti­ny recent­ly over his ties to Thomas. For years he treat­ed the jus­tice to undis­closed lux­u­ry vaca­tions, fly­ing him on his pri­vate jet around the world on trips worth hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars, accord­ing to report­ing this year from ProP­ub­li­ca.

ProP­ub­li­ca also report­ed that Crow bought three Geor­gia prop­er­ties — includ­ing the home of Thomas’s moth­er — from the jus­tice and his rel­a­tives and paid pri­vate school tuition for a Thomas grand­nephew. Thomas didn’t dis­close most of the trips and gifts from Crow in his annu­al finan­cial fil­ings, set­ting off a bat­tle over the high court’s eth­i­cal stan­dards.

The case is Hub­bard v. Crow, 23-cv-00580, US Dis­trict Court, West­ern Dis­trict of Texas (San Anto­nio).

———–

“Texas Phil­an­thropist Tram­mell Crow to Face Sex Traf­fick­ing Suit” By Zoe Till­man and Emi­ly Birn­baum; Bloomberg; 11/21/2023

“Tram­mell Crow is one of more than 100 peo­ple and busi­ness­es that took part in the alleged traf­fick­ing and rack­e­teer­ing enter­prise, accord­ing to the suit, brought by two women who say they were its vic­tims. The two claim they were drugged, phys­i­cal­ly abused, threat­ened and forced to per­form sex acts, and that Crow played a key role in pro­vid­ing financ­ing for the scheme.”

Tram­mell Crow isn’t the only per­son involved with this sex traf­fick­ing suit brought by the traf­fick­ing vic­tims them­selves. But he’s appar­ent­ly one of the most promi­nent of those involved and accused of play­ing a key role in pro­vid­ing financ­ing for the oper­a­tion. So was Crow a very promi­nent cus­tomer of this sex traf­fick­ing rack­et or was he oper­at­ing as a kind of pimp financier? That remains unclear, but giv­en that charges include drug­ging, phys­i­cal abuse, and forced sex­u­al acts, it’s a pret­ty awful sto­ry either way.

And while the judge has already ruled that the women bring­ing the case have pro­vid­ed enough evi­dence for it to go for­ward, curi­ous­ly, it appears that Crow is the only per­son to have a com­plaint served so far, with a cou­ple more weeks to go to serve the rest. It’s going to be inter­est­ing to see how this case plays out:

...
On Mon­day US Dis­trict Judge Fred Biery in San Anto­nio denied requests by Crow and oth­er defen­dants to dis­miss the case, orig­i­nal­ly filed a year ago in fed­er­al court in Los Ange­les. He found that the women had pre­sent­ed clear enough descrip­tions of their claims for now, with­out rul­ing on the claims’ mer­its.

...

John Balestriere, a lawyer for the women, said in a state­ment that they were “extreme­ly pleased” with the rul­ing and looked for­ward to prepar­ing for tri­al, includ­ing gath­er­ing evi­dence and depos­ing the defen­dants.

In a sep­a­rate order Mon­day, Biery said it appeared the women hadn’t served the com­plaint on oth­er defen­dants, includ­ing more than 100 unnamed peo­ple and com­pa­nies they say par­tic­i­pat­ed in the alleged scheme. The judge gave them until Dec. 4 to explain why the claims against those defen­dants shouldn’t be tossed out.
...

And that brings us to anoth­er eeri­ly sim­i­lar sound­ing sto­ry that came out just a cou­ple of weeks ear­li­er: the DOJ just announced the arrests of three indi­vid­u­als accused of oper­at­ing a ‘high-end broth­el net­work’ in Mass­a­chu­setts and Vir­ginia. While no clients were named, the pro­fes­sions of known clients include elect­ed offi­cials, mil­i­tary offi­cers, and the exec­u­tives of high tech com­pa­nies. Poten­tial­ly hun­dreds of clients who had to go through a screen­ing process that involved sub­mit­ting a driver’s license pho­tos, their employ­er infor­ma­tion, and cred­it card infor­ma­tion. So either there’s both a DOJ inves­ti­ga­tion and pri­vate law­suit of the same sex traf­fick­ing ring, or we have two sto­ries about two entire­ly sep­a­rate elite pros­ti­tu­tion rings announced with­in weeks of each oth­er:

CNN

DOJ announces arrests in ‘high-end broth­el net­work’ used by elect­ed offi­cials, mil­i­tary offi­cers and oth­ers

By Holmes Lybrand, CNN
Updat­ed 6:56 PM EST, Wed Novem­ber 8, 2023

Three indi­vid­u­als have been arrest­ed on charges of oper­at­ing a “high-end broth­el net­work” in Mass­a­chu­setts and Vir­ginia with a clien­tele that includ­ed elect­ed offi­cials, mil­i­tary offi­cers and gov­ern­ment con­trac­tors with secu­ri­ty clear­ances, the Jus­tice Depart­ment announced Wednes­day.

“Pick a pro­fes­sion,” Joshua Levy, act­ing US attor­ney for Mass­a­chu­setts, said of the sprawl­ing client list dur­ing a press con­fer­ence in Boston. “They’re prob­a­bly rep­re­sent­ed in this case.”

Levy did not iden­ti­fy any of the brothel’s clients and not­ed that mul­ti­ple search war­rants are being exe­cut­ed in the case in Mass­a­chu­setts, Cal­i­for­nia and Vir­ginia.

Han Lee, 41, of Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts; James Lee, 68, of Tor­rance, Cal­i­for­nia; and Jun­myung Lee, 30, of Ded­ham, Mass­a­chu­setts have been charged with con­spir­a­cy to coerce and entice to trav­el to engage in ille­gal sex­u­al activ­i­ty. They are expect­ed to appear in fed­er­al court in Boston Wednes­day or at a lat­er date.

The three indi­vid­u­als, Levy said, trans­port­ed women and adver­tised them online for pre-approved clients to choose from through sev­er­al web­sites and ran the broth­els out of apart­ments they rent­ed.

“This case goes back to the sum­mer of 2022 when inves­ti­ga­tors iden­ti­fied sev­er­al buy­ers through sur­veil­lance phone records and inter­views,” Levy said. “The buy­ers who made up this ring hail from an array of pro­fes­sions.”

He added: “They are doc­tors, they are lawyers, they are accoun­tants, they are elect­ed offi­cials, they are exec­u­tives of high tech com­pa­nies and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, they are mil­i­tary offi­cers, gov­ern­ment con­trac­tors, pro­fes­sors, sci­en­tists. They are the men who fuel this com­mer­cial sex ring.”

“There are poten­tial­ly hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als who took these ser­vices as com­mer­cial sex buy­ers,” Levy said, not­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion is still in its ear­ly stages.

“Alleged prospec­tive sex buy­ers in this scheme first had to respond to a sur­vey and pro­vide infor­ma­tion online, includ­ing their driver’s license pho­tos, their employ­er infor­ma­tion, cred­it card infor­ma­tion, and they often paid a month­ly fee to be part of this.”

The pros­ti­tu­tion net­work pri­mar­i­ly used two web­sites that adver­tised appoint­ments with Asian women, accord­ing to an affi­davit filed in court from a spe­cial agent with Home­land Secu­ri­ty Inves­ti­ga­tions.

The agent said about 20 sex buy­ers were inter­viewed in con­nec­tion with the mul­ti­year inves­ti­ga­tion. One cus­tomer described get­ting a text of avail­able options at a broth­el, includ­ing the women avail­able, the sex­u­al ser­vices and the hourly rate.

...

Cus­tomers are not named in the affi­davit, accord­ing to the agent, because the inves­ti­ga­tion into their involve­ment is “active and ongo­ing.”

...

————

“DOJ announces arrests in ‘high-end broth­el net­work’ used by elect­ed offi­cials, mil­i­tary offi­cers and oth­ers” By Holmes Lybrand; CNN; 11/08/2023

“He added: “They are doc­tors, they are lawyers, they are accoun­tants, they are elect­ed offi­cials, they are exec­u­tives of high tech com­pa­nies and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, they are mil­i­tary offi­cers, gov­ern­ment con­trac­tors, pro­fes­sors, sci­en­tists. They are the men who fuel this com­mer­cial sex ring.””

Elect­ed offi­cials, promi­nent exec­u­tives, and mil­i­tary offi­cers. The poten­tial impli­ca­tions are omi­nous. Espe­cial­ly omi­nous for the three peo­ple already charged with oper­at­ing the ring. They bet­ter stay away from tall build­ings and any oth­er sce­nario that could result in an ‘acci­dent’:

...
Levy did not iden­ti­fy any of the brothel’s clients and not­ed that mul­ti­ple search war­rants are being exe­cut­ed in the case in Mass­a­chu­setts, Cal­i­for­nia and Vir­ginia.

Han Lee, 41, of Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts; James Lee, 68, of Tor­rance, Cal­i­for­nia; and Jun­myung Lee, 30, of Ded­ham, Mass­a­chu­setts have been charged with con­spir­a­cy to coerce and entice to trav­el to engage in ille­gal sex­u­al activ­i­ty. They are expect­ed to appear in fed­er­al court in Boston Wednes­day or at a lat­er date.

The three indi­vid­u­als, Levy said, trans­port­ed women and adver­tised them online for pre-approved clients to choose from through sev­er­al web­sites and ran the broth­els out of apart­ments they rent­ed.

“This case goes back to the sum­mer of 2022 when inves­ti­ga­tors iden­ti­fied sev­er­al buy­ers through sur­veil­lance phone records and inter­views,” Levy said. “The buy­ers who made up this ring hail from an array of pro­fes­sions.”
...

So is this inves­ti­ga­tion pos­si­bly about the same sex traf­fick­ing ring that Tram­mel Crow just got impli­ca­tion in? We have no idea at this point since so few details have been released so far about either ring. But note the com­pa­ra­ble scales: we are told there are poten­tial­ly hun­dreds of clients for this ring. Sim­i­lar­ly, the Tram­mel Crow law­suit involved “more than 100 peo­ple and busi­ness­es that took part in the alleged traf­fick­ing and rack­e­teer­ing enter­prise.” Could these be the same ring? If not, it would be inter­est­ing to know how much over­lap there is in clien­tele:

...
“There are poten­tial­ly hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als who took these ser­vices as com­mer­cial sex buy­ers,” Levy said, not­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion is still in its ear­ly stages.

“Alleged prospec­tive sex buy­ers in this scheme first had to respond to a sur­vey and pro­vide infor­ma­tion online, includ­ing their driver’s license pho­tos, their employ­er infor­ma­tion, cred­it card infor­ma­tion, and they often paid a month­ly fee to be part of this.”

...

The agent said about 20 sex buy­ers were inter­viewed in con­nec­tion with the mul­ti­year inves­ti­ga­tion. One cus­tomer described get­ting a text of avail­able options at a broth­el, includ­ing the women avail­able, the sex­u­al ser­vices and the hourly rate.

...

Cus­tomers are not named in the affi­davit, accord­ing to the agent, because the inves­ti­ga­tion into their involve­ment is “active and ongo­ing.”
...

And then there’s the very unpleas­ant ques­tion we kind of have to ask at this point: So were any of those clients judges? Pos­si­bly the kinds of judges who might be on the Supreme Court some­day? Or maybe already on the court? We don’t know, and it’s not clear we’ll ever know. But when sto­ry like this pop up, it’s a reminder that, for all the news cov­er­age focused on pow­er pol­i­tics, there’s nev­er real­ly any account­ing for shad­ow pow­er of black­mail when that’s obvi­ous­ly how much of pow­er is wield­ed in the real world.

And that’s all why these are going to be some sto­ries worth keep­ing an eye on. Either for what they ulti­mate­ly reveal, or just to see if the sto­ries are some­how dropped and cov­ered up like we should expect at this point. And maybe even a few ‘sui­cides’ along the way.

How many elite sex traf­fick­ing rings are there oper­at­ing in the US these days? It’s one of many ques­tions raised by this mon­th’s pair of elite sex traf­fick­ing legal announce­ments. First, the was the announce­ment sev­er­al weeks ago of three arrests in a ring oper­at­ing out of the DC area and Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts. And then there was the announce­ment last week about a judges rul­ing to allow a law­suit to go for­ward brought by two women claim­ing to the the long-time vic­tims of an elite sex traf­fick­ing ring involv­ing Tram­mell Crow, Jr, broth­er of Supreme Court Jus­tice Clarence Thomas’s sug­ar dad­dy Har­lan Crow.

So are these two sto­ries about the same sex traf­fick­ing ring? Nope. It appears to be two sep­a­rate rings oper­at­ing in dif­fer­ent cities under dif­fer­ent time­frames. The accu­sa­tions against Crow assert he was hold­ing sex par­ties at his Mar­ble Falls, Texas, man­sion, where Crow had “lin­gerie rooms” on the prop­er­ty for the girls. Their law­suit also accus­es a Texas Ranger, Cody Mitchell, of threat­ened them with “arrests under false charges,” and dis­cour­ag­ing them from seek­ing the help of law enforce­ment. A psy­chol­o­gist, Dr. Ben­jamin Todd Eller, false­ly claimed that the women were ‘seri­ous­ly psy­chi­atri­cal­ly trou­bled’ in order to secure heavy dose pre­scrip­tions of ‘Xanax, Adder­all, Oxy­codone, Mari­nol, Soma, Lorazepam, Ambi­en, and Trazadone.’ The women fur­ther allege that Crow was involved at the very start of the traf­fick­ing ring in 2010, and knew “all the details of the force, fraud, threat, and coer­cion... and with­out him the ven­ture nev­er could have suc­ceed­ed”. The ring was oper­at­ing until at least 2020.

And then there’s the ring oper­at­ing out of DC and Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts. That ring does­n’t appear to have elites run­ning it, and yet the clien­tele was clear­ly very elite. Beyond that, we are learn­ing that the woman who ran this ring, Han Lee, kept metic­u­lous notes on those clients. Recall how prospec­tive clients had to fill out a form that includ­ed a pho­to of their dri­vers license. All of their iden­ti­ties were pre­sum­ably known by Lee, and now by inves­ti­ga­tors.

The DC/Cambridge ring appears to have start­ed in 2020 and oper­at­ed for a cou­ple of years, gen­er­at­ing over $1 mil­lion in pro­ceeds. Here’s part of where this sto­ry gets extra inter­est­ing. Because it appears that con­cealed more than $1 mil­lion “in pros­ti­tu­tion pro­ceeds by pur­chas­ing struc­tured mon­ey orders, mak­ing cash deposits into known US bank accounts, and engag­ing in var­i­ous bank and peer-to-peer (P2P) account trans­fers.” That’s despite hav­ing no appar­ent legit­i­mate employ­ment. So was this ring with pow­er­ful con­nec­tions being giv­en ‘spe­cial treat­ment’ by the banks? Or is this a reflec­tion of just how bro­ken the US finan­cial sys­tem is when it comes to dirty mon­ey?

Inter­est­ing­ly, we’re also able to rough­ly esti­mate the num­ber of sex­u­al trans­ac­tions oper­at­ed by the ring giv­en the price range of $350-$600 per encounter. If we assumed rough­ly $500 per encounter and around $1 mil­lion in pro­ceeds, that trans­lates to 2,000 encoun­ters. Many in DC and all well doc­u­ment­ed in Han Lee’s records.

Final­ly, it’s worth not­ing one of the many Jef­frey Epstein echoes in this sto­ry: don’t for­get how Cam­bridge was one of Jef­frey Epstein’s stomp­ing grounds where he was mak­ing all sorts of con­nec­tions at insti­tu­tions like Har­vard and MIT. Might there be an over­lap in clients?

And that’s what we know so far about these cas­es. Two entire­ly sep­a­rate elite sex traf­fick­ing rings, it would appear. The iden­ti­ties of these clients remains a mys­tery, along with how the obvi­ous black­mail poten­tial was han­dled. Were these tru­ly dis­crete busi­ness­es? Or blackmail/intelligence oper­a­tions? We still have no idea. But it’s worth not­ing these are the exact same kinds of ques­tions we’ve long had about the Epstein case. With­out con­crete answers to this day.

Ok, first, here’s a look at the remark­able ‘luck’ of the DC/Cambridge ring oper­a­tors. Despite no appar­ent source of income, they man­aged to laun­der $1 mil­lion through US banks from 2020–2022 alone:

Boston Globe

Defen­dants in high-end broth­el case con­cealed $1 mil­lion in pros­ti­tu­tion pro­ceeds, pros­e­cu­tors say

By Travis Ander­sen and Sean Cot­ter Globe Staff,
Updat­ed Novem­ber 22, 2023, 12:58 p.m.

WORCESTER — Two peo­ple accused of oper­at­ing a high-end broth­el ring in Mass­a­chu­setts and Vir­ginia that catered to a wealthy clien­tele agreed Wednes­day to remain in cus­tody while the case is pend­ing.

Dur­ing a brief hear­ing in US Dis­trict Court in Worces­ter, Han Lee, 41, of Cam­bridge, and Jun­myung Lee, 30, of Ded­ham, accept­ed pre­tri­al detain­ment although they can seek bail at a lat­er date. Their lawyers declined to com­ment after­ward.

In an affi­davit filed Wednes­day in US Dis­trict Court in Boston, inves­ti­ga­tors said the two defen­dants have access to vast sums of cash despite no appar­ent legit­i­mate employ­ment. The doc­u­ment also pro­vid­ed new details on the work­ings of the alleged ring.

Author­i­ties said Han Lee con­cealed more than $1 mil­lion “in pros­ti­tu­tion pro­ceeds by pur­chas­ing struc­tured mon­ey orders, mak­ing cash deposits into known US bank accounts, and engag­ing in var­i­ous bank and peer-to-peer (P2P) account trans­fers.”

...

The two defen­dants and a third per­son, James Lee, 68, of Tor­rance, Calif., stand accused of vio­lat­ing the Mann Act, a fed­er­al law that tar­gets inter­state pros­ti­tu­tion rings, by run­ning a net­work of broth­els out of apart­ments in Cam­bridge, Water­town, and the sub­urbs of Wash­ing­ton, D.C. since at least the sum­mer of 2020, accord­ing to court records.

The three defen­dants, who offi­cials said are not relat­ed, were arrest­ed Nov. 8 by Home­land Secu­ri­ty agents who served war­rants at their homes, as well as at four sus­pect­ed broth­els in Mass­a­chu­setts.

Wealthy and well-con­nect­ed clients, includ­ing politi­cians, sci­en­tists, busi­ness exec­u­tives, gov­ern­ment con­trac­tors with secu­ri­ty clear­ances, and mil­i­tary offi­cers, were among hun­dreds of men who paid for sex at the broth­els, fed­er­al author­i­ties have said.

Fed­er­al author­i­ties said the ring brought in hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars, with hourly rates some­times rang­ing from $350 to $600 for an appoint­ment, depend­ing on the length of the ses­sion and the acts involved.

Jun­myung Lee alleged­ly told inves­ti­ga­tors fol­low­ing his arrest that Han Lee paid him $6,000 to $8,000 each month, author­i­ties said.

“I believe he pur­chased his 2018 Chevro­let Corvette using pros­ti­tu­tion pro­ceeds,” US Home­land Secu­ri­ty Spe­cial Agent Zachary A. Mitl­it­sky wrote in an affi­davit.

Inves­ti­ga­tors seized 16 cell phones from Han Lee’s res­i­dence when they searched it fol­low­ing her arrest, includ­ing one device that was used to facil­i­tate the illic­it busi­ness in Vir­ginia, the affi­davit said.

Offi­cials also seized a Mac­Book com­put­er that was alleged­ly used to main­tain the broth­el network’s web­sites and to com­mu­ni­cate with cus­tomers and employ­ees, accord­ing to the fil­ing.

“I believe that Han’s finan­cial and busi­ness record keep­ing was impec­ca­ble,” Mitl­it­sky wrote, adding that she alleged­ly “main­tained ledgers detail­ing the dai­ly activ­i­ty of her broth­els.”

Inves­ti­ga­tors said they also dis­cov­ered text mes­sages between Han Lee and alleged sex work­ers in which she “not only list­ed a brief descrip­tion of the antic­i­pat­ed cus­tomers, expect­ed sex­u­al ser­vices and cor­re­spond­ing pric­ing, and sched­ule of appoint­ments for the day, but also set forth what I believe to be her house rules for com­mer­cial sex work­ers engag­ing in sex for a fee at the broth­el apart­ments,” the affi­davit said.

Among the rules for sex work­ers, accord­ing to screen shots of the mes­sages includ­ed in the affi­davit, were “no laun­dry after 9 pm,” “please turn on the song while work­ing,” and “turn on the TV in the liv­ing room. These days ... peo­ple work from home a lot.”

Busi­ness was brisk, author­i­ties said, and Han Lee alleged­ly spent lav­ish­ly.

“I am aware that Han lacks legit­i­mate employ­ment,” the affi­davit said. “Despite this, inves­ti­ga­tors locat­ed lux­u­ry bags and shoes, includ­ing, items from Yves St. Lau­rent, Givenchy, Louis Vuit­ton, Chris­t­ian Louboutin, and Jim­my Choo” from her res­i­dence.

A Louis Vuit­ton shoe box used as a fil­ing cab­i­net had held shoes with a stick­er price of $1,360, Mitl­it­sky wrote.

Author­i­ties said Jun­myung Lee is in Mass­a­chu­setts on a stu­dent visa to attend a Boston com­put­er insti­tute. “As such, he has no dis­cernible income,” the affi­davit said, yet he made a $25,500 down pay­ment on a Corvette last year, two weeks after deposit­ing $35,700 into his check­ing account,

“Based upon my famil­iar­i­ty with the inves­ti­ga­tion, I believe the $35,700 in cash that [Jun­myung Lee] deposit­ed into his check­ing account was a pay­ment for open­ing [a] broth­el lease in his own name,” Mitl­it­sky wrote. “I also believe that the down pay­ment on his Corvette involved the use of pro­ceeds of the pros­ti­tu­tion busi­ness.”

Deposits into Jun­myung Lee’s per­son­al check­ing account “ramped up sig­nif­i­cant­ly” last year and this year, the affi­davit said. In 2020 and 2021, the account had aver­age deposits of just over $50,000, Mitl­it­sky wrote. That num­ber bal­looned to $175,000 last year and had reached around $100,000 in the first eight months of 2023.

“I do not believe that there is any rea­son for [the defen­dants] to have access to such a large amount of cash dur­ing a short peri­od of time unless that cash was through an ille­gal enter­prise like this high­ly prof­itable pros­ti­tu­tion net­work,” the affi­davit said.

Author­i­ties also said the defen­dants posed a flight risk.

Author­i­ties have not released the names of any sus­pect­ed cus­tomers, cit­ing an ongo­ing “inves­ti­ga­tion into their involve­ment in pros­ti­tu­tion,” and no charges against clients have been announced.

The traf­ficked women were pre­dom­i­nant­ly Asian and were moved around the coun­try and “exploit­ed,” fed­er­al author­i­ties said. None of the women have been charged.

...

———

“Defen­dants in high-end broth­el case con­cealed $1 mil­lion in pros­ti­tu­tion pro­ceeds, pros­e­cu­tors say” by Travis Ander­sen and Sean Cot­ter; Boston Globe; 11/22/2023

“In an affi­davit filed Wednes­day in US Dis­trict Court in Boston, inves­ti­ga­tors said the two defen­dants have access to vast sums of cash despite no appar­ent legit­i­mate employ­ment. The doc­u­ment also pro­vid­ed new details on the work­ings of the alleged ring.”

Vast sums of mon­ey with no appar­ent legit­i­mate employ­ment. That seems like a red flag. And it would be one thing if this was all in cash. But that’s not how this oper­a­tion was han­dled. Instead, it appears they deposit­ed that cash into US banks. Over $1 mil­lion in pro­ceeds. How was that allowed to hap­pen? Did they use some sort of finan­cial cun­ning to keep the banks from sus­pect­ing any­thing? Or did they just find a bunch of cor­rupt or neg­li­gent banks? Those are among the many details we have yet to learn in this increas­ing­ly mys­te­ri­ous case:

...
Author­i­ties said Han Lee con­cealed more than $1 mil­lion “in pros­ti­tu­tion pro­ceeds by pur­chas­ing struc­tured mon­ey orders, mak­ing cash deposits into known US bank accounts, and engag­ing in var­i­ous bank and peer-to-peer (P2P) account trans­fers.”

...

Busi­ness was brisk, author­i­ties said, and Han Lee alleged­ly spent lav­ish­ly.

“I am aware that Han lacks legit­i­mate employ­ment,” the affi­davit said. “Despite this, inves­ti­ga­tors locat­ed lux­u­ry bags and shoes, includ­ing, items from Yves St. Lau­rent, Givenchy, Louis Vuit­ton, Chris­t­ian Louboutin, and Jim­my Choo” from her res­i­dence.
z
A Louis Vuit­ton shoe box used as a fil­ing cab­i­net had held shoes with a stick­er price of $1,360, Mitl­it­sky wrote.

Author­i­ties said Jun­myung Lee is in Mass­a­chu­setts on a stu­dent visa to attend a Boston com­put­er insti­tute. “As such, he has no dis­cernible income,” the affi­davit said, yet he made a $25,500 down pay­ment on a Corvette last year, two weeks after deposit­ing $35,700 into his check­ing account,

“Based upon my famil­iar­i­ty with the inves­ti­ga­tion, I believe the $35,700 in cash that [Jun­myung Lee] deposit­ed into his check­ing account was a pay­ment for open­ing [a] broth­el lease in his own name,” Mitl­it­sky wrote. “I also believe that the down pay­ment on his Corvette involved the use of pro­ceeds of the pros­ti­tu­tion busi­ness.”

Deposits into Jun­myung Lee’s per­son­al check­ing account “ramped up sig­nif­i­cant­ly” last year and this year, the affi­davit said. In 2020 and 2021, the account had aver­age deposits of just over $50,000, Mitl­it­sky wrote. That num­ber bal­looned to $175,000 last year and had reached around $100,000 in the first eight months of 2023.

“I do not believe that there is any rea­son for [the defen­dants] to have access to such a large amount of cash dur­ing a short peri­od of time unless that cash was through an ille­gal enter­prise like this high­ly prof­itable pros­ti­tu­tion net­work,” the affi­davit said.
...

Also note the num­ber of sex­u­al ‘trans­ac­tions’ that pre­sum­ably took place over the course of this ring’s oper­a­tions: rates ranged from $350-$600 an appoint­ment. Let’s say $500 on aver­age to keep it sim­ple: with $1 mil­lion in pro­ceeds, that would trans­late to rough­ly 2,000 sex­u­al encoun­ters involv­ing these elite clients:

...
Fed­er­al author­i­ties said the ring brought in hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars, with hourly rates some­times rang­ing from $350 to $600 for an appoint­ment, depend­ing on the length of the ses­sion and the acts involved.

Jun­myung Lee alleged­ly told inves­ti­ga­tors fol­low­ing his arrest that Han Lee paid him $6,000 to $8,000 each month, author­i­ties said.

“I believe he pur­chased his 2018 Chevro­let Corvette using pros­ti­tu­tion pro­ceeds,” US Home­land Secu­ri­ty Spe­cial Agent Zachary A. Mitl­it­sky wrote in an affi­davit.
...

And that remark­able vol­ume of trans­ac­tions brings us to the remark­able book­keep­ing involve: Han Lee appar­ent­ly kept metic­u­lous records. Don’t for­get how clients had to sub­mit a pho­to of their dri­vers license as part of the appli­ca­tion process. In oth­er words, there’s prob­a­bly a record of who was involved in every sin­gle trans­ac­tion:

...
Inves­ti­ga­tors seized 16 cell phones from Han Lee’s res­i­dence when they searched it fol­low­ing her arrest, includ­ing one device that was used to facil­i­tate the illic­it busi­ness in Vir­ginia, the affi­davit said.

Offi­cials also seized a Mac­Book com­put­er that was alleged­ly used to main­tain the broth­el network’s web­sites and to com­mu­ni­cate with cus­tomers and employ­ees, accord­ing to the fil­ing.

“I believe that Han’s finan­cial and busi­ness record keep­ing was impec­ca­ble,” Mitl­it­sky wrote, adding that she alleged­ly “main­tained ledgers detail­ing the dai­ly activ­i­ty of her broth­els.”
...

Also note the tim­ing of all this: it appar­ent­ly start­ed around the sum­mer of 2020:

...
The two defen­dants and a third per­son, James Lee, 68, of Tor­rance, Calif., stand accused of vio­lat­ing the Mann Act, a fed­er­al law that tar­gets inter­state pros­ti­tu­tion rings, by run­ning a net­work of broth­els out of apart­ments in Cam­bridge, Water­town, and the sub­urbs of Wash­ing­ton, D.C. since at least the sum­mer of 2020, accord­ing to court records.
...

And as we’re going to see, 2020 appears to be rough­ly when the oth­er sex traf­fick­ing ring under inves­ti­ga­tion was wrap­ping up. A ring that, from the start in 2010, used Tram­mell Crow Jr’s Mar­ble Falls man­sion as the loca­tion of elite sex par­ties. Crow even had “lin­gerie rooms” on the prop­er­ty for the girls. Those are just some of accu­sa­tions against Crow brought in an unfold­ing law­suit by two of the alleged vic­tims, Julia Hub­bard and Kay­la Goed­ing­haus. Both women claim the ring­leader of the group was Julia Hub­bard’s then-hus­band, Richard Hub­bard. It was 2018 when Julia escaped the con­trol of her hus­band. In 2020, Goed­ing­haus, then his fiancee, also escaped from the group.

But Tram­mell Crow and Richard Hub­bard aren’t the only fig­ures named in this law­suit. The women claim a Texas Ranger, Cody Mitchell, threat­ened them with “arrests under false charges,” and dis­cour­age them from seek­ing the help of law enforce­ment. A psy­chol­o­gist, Dr. Ben­jamin Todd Eller, false­ly claimed that the women were ‘seri­ous­ly psy­chi­atri­cal­ly trou­bled’ in order to secure heavy dose pre­scrip­tions of ‘Xanax, Adder­all, Oxy­codone, Mari­nol, Soma, Lorazepam, Ambi­en, and Trazadone.’ The women fur­ther allege that Crow was involved at the very start of the traf­fick­ing ring in 2010, and knew “all the details of the force, fraud, threat, and coer­cion... and with­out him the ven­ture nev­er could have suc­ceed­ed”.

So based on the avail­able details, these appear to be two entire­ly sep­a­rate elite sex traf­fick­ing rings oper­at­ing in dif­fer­ent states under dif­fer­ent time­frames. Which, again, rais­es the ques­tion of just how many elite sex traf­fick­ing rings are there out these days?:

The Dai­ly Mail

GOP donor Har­lan Crow’s broth­er is accused of financ­ing 100-per­son sex traf­fick­ing ring in bomb­shell law­suit where women say they were drugged, abused and forced to per­form sex acts

* Tram­mell Crow, 72, is the broth­er of Repub­li­can megadonor Har­lan Crow, 74
* The lat­ter hit the head­lines this year for his gen­er­ous gifts to Clarence Thomas
* Tram­mell was accused in 2022 of financ­ing and back­ing a sex traf­fick­ing ring
* The two women claim that from 2010 they were drugged by a group of doc­tors

By Har­ri­et Alexan­der For Dailymail.com

Pub­lished: 23:59 EST, 21 Novem­ber 2023 | Updat­ed: 09:19 EST, 22 Novem­ber 2023

The broth­er of Repub­li­can megadonor Har­lan Crow must face tri­al over alle­ga­tions of financ­ing a 100-per­son sex traf­fick­ing ring, a judge in Texas has ruled — paving the way for a bomb­shell court case involv­ing one of Texas’ rich­est fam­i­lies.

Tram­mell Crow, a 72-year-old prop­er­ty mag­nate and envi­ron­men­tal phil­an­thropist, is accused by two women of pro­vid­ing ‘essen­tial finan­cial assis­tance’ for the net­work.

The women, Julia Hub­bard and Kay­la Goed­ing­haus, claim that from 2010 onwards they were drugged by a group of doc­tors involved in the scheme, and then forced to per­form sex acts.

They claim the ring­leader of the group was Julia Hub­bard’s then-hus­band, Richard Hub­bard, who con­trolled her until 2018, she alleges. Goed­ing­haus was his fiancee, but escaped the group in 2020.

One of the women became ‘a vir­tu­al long-term sex slave’, the suit states, and anoth­er was also beat­en and raped.

Crow, who ear­li­er this year met the Duchess of York, Sarah Fer­gu­son, at his Austin ranch to dis­cuss envi­ron­men­tal issues, said through his lawyer that the case was ‘absurd and bla­tant­ly false’.

...

The Crow fam­i­ly is among the most pow­er­ful in Texas.

Har­lan Crow is the chair­man and for­mer CEO of Crow Hold­ings, a Texas-based fam­i­ly real estate firm with $29 bil­lion in assets.

Har­lan and Tram­mell Crow’s father, not­ed real estate devel­op­er Tram­mell Crow Sr, found­ed the com­pa­ny in 1948 and the Crow fam­i­ly name is found on build­ings through­out Dal­las.

Four of the six Crow sib­lings fol­lowed their leg­endary father into real estate: Har­lan, Tram­mell, their broth­er Stu­art and sis­ter Lucy.

Tram­mell Crow was first accused by the women in a Novem­ber 2022 law­suit, filed in Cal­i­for­nia. The case was trans­ferred to Texas, where most of the defen­dants live.

Crow’s team attempt­ed to get the charges dis­missed, argu­ing they were with­out mer­it.

But on Mon­day, US Dis­trict Judge Fred Biery, sit­ting in San Anto­nio, ordered that the case pro­ceed to tri­al.

John Balestriere, a lawyer for the women, told DailyMail.com that they were ‘extreme­ly pleased’ with the rul­ing and looked for­ward to prepar­ing for tri­al, includ­ing gath­er­ing evi­dence and depos­ing the defen­dants.

Balestriere not­ed that his firm rep­re­sent­ed plain­tiffs who won in a sex traf­fick­ing jury tri­al in Brook­lyn fed­er­al court last year, and added: ‘Our clients and we are pre­pared to go the dis­tance.’

Crow’s lawyers told DailyMail.com that the rul­ing was ‘dis­ap­point­ing but not a sur­prise giv­en the court at this ear­ly stage is pro­hib­it­ed from ques­tion­ing the verac­i­ty’ of the claims.

...

The women say that Julia Hub­bard met Tram­mell Crow when she was work­ing as a wait­ress in a Dal­las night­club, and invit­ed him to her mod­el­ing events.

Through Julia Hub­bard, Crow was intro­duced to her then-hus­band, Richard.

Crow host­ed sex par­ties at his Mar­ble Falls home, the women claim, and refused to help them when they begged him for assis­tance.

‘Defen­dant Crow knew, or reck­less­ly dis­re­gard­ed, that Plain­tiffs would be forced to engage in com­mer­cial sex acts because as ear­ly as 2011, Plain­tiff Hub­bard informed Crow that she was being forced by the Ven­ture to engage in com­mer­cial sex acts against her will,’ the court fil­ing states.

The women claim, in their case fil­ings, that doc­tors, a Texas Ranger and oth­ers worked to keep the women drugged and run ‘an ille­gal rack­e­teer­ing enter­prise’.

They claim that the Texas Ranger, Cody Mitchell, was used to threat­en them with ‘arrests under false charges,’ and dis­cour­age them from seek­ing the help of law enforce­ment.

Mitchell sent the accused ring­leader of the group, Richard Hub­bard, a pho­to­graph of him in his police cruis­er with a bot­tle of alco­hol and his penis exposed, accord­ing to doc­u­ments obtained by Dal­las Express.

The pho­to was shown to the women as a threat, their lawyers claim.

They claim that a psy­chol­o­gist, Dr. Ben­jamin Todd Eller, was enlist­ed by Hub­bard to false­ly claimed that the women were ‘seri­ous­ly psy­chi­atri­cal­ly trou­bled’ in order to secure heavy dose pre­scrip­tions of ‘Xanax, Adder­all, Oxy­codone, Mari­nol, Soma, Lorazepam, Ambi­en, and Trazadone.’

The women allege that Crow was involved at the very start of the traf­fick­ing ring in 2010, and knew ‘all the details of the force, fraud, threat, and coer­cion... and with­out him the ven­ture nev­er could have suc­ceed­ed’.

The suit fur­ther claims the Tex­an bil­lion­aire host­ed sex par­ties where the women were farmed out to his guests, and main­tained what he called ‘lin­gerie rooms’ in his prop­er­ties, ‘in which he kept a vari­ety of lin­gerie for female guests to wear, as well as what he called ‘strip­per shoes’.’

The women allege a con­spir­a­cy ‘to traf­fic women for pur­pos­es of sex­u­al acts and forced labor, to the finan­cial ben­e­fit of Defen­dant Hub­bard, Defen­dant Eller, and the Med­ical Doc­tor Defen­dants and for the sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion and ben­e­fits of all oth­er Defen­dants.’

———–

“GOP donor Har­lan Crow’s broth­er is accused of financ­ing 100-per­son sex traf­fick­ing ring in bomb­shell law­suit where women say they were drugged, abused and forced to per­form sex acts” By Har­ri­et Alexan­der; The Dai­ly Mail; 11/21/2023

“ ‘Defen­dant Crow knew, or reck­less­ly dis­re­gard­ed, that Plain­tiffs would be forced to engage in com­mer­cial sex acts because as ear­ly as 2011, Plain­tiff Hub­bard informed Crow that she was being forced by the Ven­ture to engage in com­mer­cial sex acts against her will,’ the court fil­ing states.”

Tram­mel Crow Jr knew the women attend­ing the sex par­ties he host­ed at his Mar­ble Falls home were being coerced, but appar­ent­ly did­n’t care, even after one of the plain­tiffs, Julia Hub­bard, begged him for help. Help pre­sum­ably to escape the forced drug­gings and threats that were alleged­ly facil­i­tat­ed by a Texas Ranger, Cody Mitchell, and psy­chol­o­gist Dr. Ben­jamin Todd Eller. Crow was involved from very start of the ring in 2010 and knew “all the details of the force, fraud, threat, and coer­cion... and with­out him the ven­ture nev­er could have suc­ceed­ed,” accord­ing to the accu­sa­tions:

...
The women say that Julia Hub­bard met Tram­mell Crow when she was work­ing as a wait­ress in a Dal­las night­club, and invit­ed him to her mod­el­ing events.

Through Julia Hub­bard, Crow was intro­duced to her then-hus­band, Richard.

Crow host­ed sex par­ties at his Mar­ble Falls home, the women claim, and refused to help them when they begged him for assis­tance.

...

The women claim, in their case fil­ings, that doc­tors, a Texas Ranger and oth­ers worked to keep the women drugged and run ‘an ille­gal rack­e­teer­ing enter­prise’.

They claim that the Texas Ranger, Cody Mitchell, was used to threat­en them with ‘arrests under false charges,’ and dis­cour­age them from seek­ing the help of law enforce­ment.

Mitchell sent the accused ring­leader of the group, Richard Hub­bard, a pho­to­graph of him in his police cruis­er with a bot­tle of alco­hol and his penis exposed, accord­ing to doc­u­ments obtained by Dal­las Express.

The pho­to was shown to the women as a threat, their lawyers claim.

They claim that a psy­chol­o­gist, Dr. Ben­jamin Todd Eller, was enlist­ed by Hub­bard to false­ly claimed that the women were ‘seri­ous­ly psy­chi­atri­cal­ly trou­bled’ in order to secure heavy dose pre­scrip­tions of ‘Xanax, Adder­all, Oxy­codone, Mari­nol, Soma, Lorazepam, Ambi­en, and Trazadone.’

The women allege that Crow was involved at the very start of the traf­fick­ing ring in 2010, and knew ‘all the details of the force, fraud, threat, and coer­cion... and with­out him the ven­ture nev­er could have suc­ceed­ed’.

The suit fur­ther claims the Tex­an bil­lion­aire host­ed sex par­ties where the women were farmed out to his guests, and main­tained what he called ‘lin­gerie rooms’ in his prop­er­ties, ‘in which he kept a vari­ety of lin­gerie for female guests to wear, as well as what he called ‘strip­per shoes’.’
...

And note the time­frame here: the ring start­ed in 2010 and appears to have gone on until at least 2020 when Kay­la Goed­ing­haus escaped from the group:

...
The women, Julia Hub­bard and Kay­la Goed­ing­haus, claim that from 2010 onwards they were drugged by a group of doc­tors involved in the scheme, and then forced to per­form sex acts.

They claim the ring­leader of the group was Julia Hub­bard’s then-hus­band, Richard Hub­bard, who con­trolled her until 2018, she alleges. Goed­ing­haus was his fiancee, but escaped the group in 2020.

One of the women became ‘a vir­tu­al long-term sex slave’, the suit states, and anoth­er was also beat­en and raped.

...

Tram­mell Crow was first accused by the women in a Novem­ber 2022 law­suit, filed in Cal­i­for­nia. The case was trans­ferred to Texas, where most of the defen­dants live.

Crow’s team attempt­ed to get the charges dis­missed, argu­ing they were with­out mer­it.

But on Mon­day, US Dis­trict Judge Fred Biery, sit­ting in San Anto­nio, ordered that the case pro­ceed to tri­al.
...

Keep in mind that, by 2010, Jef­frey Epstein’s ring was already bust­ed and no long pro­vid­ed those ‘ser­vices’ to his many elite ‘friends’. Which, again, rais­es the ques­tion about just how much over­lap there is with the clien­te­les of these elite sex traf­fick­ing rings. Are we look­ing at ‘Epstein 2.0’ oper­a­tions here intend­ed to fill in the gaps cre­at­ed by Epstein’s arrest and pros­e­cu­tion? Let’s hope we even­tu­al­ly find out. But, again, don’t for­get: we still don’t actu­al­ly have any sort of sat­is­fac­to­ry answers and any­thing Epstein was involved in. And odds are those answers are nev­er com­ing. So let’s hope we do even­tu­al­ly get clar­i­ty on these sto­ries with so many Epstein-echoes but don’t hold your breath.