Attorney General’s Office Taking Over Hotel Sex Party Investigation

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Patrick Sargent, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

Attorney General Maura Healey

Following up on a report from earlier today, GoLocalWorcester has learned that the Attorney General's office has now taken over the investigation of a sex party at an Auburn hotel earlier this month.

The Worcester County District Attorney's office has confirmed that they referred the case to the Attorney General. The investigation is ongoing and the AG's office was not available for further comment.

The party, which was facilitated on websites such as Backpage.com and Craigslist, involved 29 individuals in one room at the Holiday Inn Express in Auburn.

As GoLocalWorcester reported earlier, the two organizers of the party - Jon A. Lowell, 45, and Courtney C. Nicholopoulos, 39, both of 56A Brigham St., Hubbardston - were charged with deriving money from prostitution and were arraigned at the Worcester Courthouse on July 19. They will be in court again on August 26.

At the time of the arrest, the possibility remained that 27 unidentified people would be charged in the near future with engaging in sex for a fee.

When GoLocal requested the list of names of the 27 other people involved in the party, the Worcester County District Attorney’s office could not reveal the names because they have yet to be arrested. According to Timothy Connolly, Director of Communications for the DA’s office, due to the ongoing investigation, no charges have yet to be filed against the other 27 people.

Since the beginning of this year, Attorney General Maura Healey has been adamant in her attempts to take down sites like Backpage.com - due to a February lawsuit against the site for sex trafficking, and most recently, a murder of a 34-year-old prostitute in a hotel in Burlington, MA.

In a statement from earlier this month, Healey said, ““As we have seen through our office’s work, Backpage.com and the internet have become increasingly popular vehicles for commercial sexual exploitation. In fact, most of the human trafficking cases that our office has prosecuted specifically involve advertisements on Backpage. It is clear that Backpage must do more to end the kind of exploitation that is advertised every day on its site. Today, I am calling on Backpage to immediately shut down the ‘adult’ section of its website – a long overdue step that I urge them to take now.”

Stay with GoLocalWorcester has more information becomes available.