10 Years For Dorchester Human Trafficker Who Pleaded Guilty

Boston, MA - A Dorchester man pleaded guilty to using drugs, threats and violence to coerce women into his human trafficking operation, and will consequently spend the next decade behind bars.

Anthony Dew, 33, pleaded guilty in Superior Court Wednesday to human trafficking, assault and battery, distribution of a Class A substance, and distribution of a Class B substance.

Superior Court Judge Linda Giles sentenced Dew to eight to 10 years in state prison followed by seven years of probation, a press release from the Suffolk County District Attorney's office said.

Had the case proceeded to trial, the release said, the chief of the DA’s Human Trafficking Unit would have introduced evidence and testimony to prove that Dew ran a human trafficking operation out of two apartments on Adams and Maxwell streets in Dorchester during 2014 and early 2015. During that time, he prostituted five women, collected the proceeds of their prostitution activity, and provided each with drugs as payment – specifically heroin and crack cocaine, the release said. He also regularly sold drugs to other individuals, it said.

Boston Police detectives discovered Dew through prostitution ads posted on backpage.com that bore his name. A search warrant executed at Dew’s Maxwell Street apartment on Jan. 15, 2015, revealed items including two dozen cell phones, tablets, a surveillance system, police scanner, records Dew kept of his prostitution business and four lines of heroin set up on a kitchen table, the press release said.

Before Dew’s sentence was imposed, one of women he exploited delivered a victim impact statement to the court. As reproduced in the press release, it read:

“[These crimes] took a piece of my identity, my dignity, my pride, and my self-worth. I felt belittled and disgraced. This is a piece of my life that I can never get back…. I came here to stand up and say that I am not a victim anymore but a survivor. I am here for other women out there like me who have been exploited by people like him. I am no longer a victim—of the drug or of him."

Other victim statements described being "scared for my life," "violated" and "emotionally scarred."

"He took something from me that only I should have had the power to give," one woman's statement said.