Feds say Maryland man tried to blackmail two Boston-area men after he came up here for sex with them and secretly videoed them
A Silver Spring, MD man was arrested on a federal extortion charge today after he allegedly threatened to release images from recordings he made on sex-for-pay visits with two men in eastern Massachusetts.
Brandon D. Kane, 27, faces up to two years in prison and a fine of $250,000 if convicted on the charge of making extortionate threats in interstate commerce, the US Attorney's office in Boston reports, adding Kane is now being held in a facility in Maryland pending his transport to Boston to face the charges here.
According to an affidavit by an FBI agent on the case, in September, 2021, Kane, calling himself Tommy, and his first victim, a doctor, met via an online app and agreed to have sex in the victim's home office.
In the office, Victim 1’s academic degrees were displayed on the wall and cocaine was on a desk next to Victim 1. During the interaction between Tommy and Victim 1, Tommy surreptitiously recorded Victim 1 sitting near his degrees and the cocaine. Victim 1 was too intoxicated to have intercourse with Tommy. Victim 1 paid Tommy $150 over CashApp for coming to Victim 1’s residence and ordered Tommy a ride via a ride-share app.
The next month, the affidavit continues, Kane sent a video to the victim, which showed the man's academic degrees on the wall of his office and cocaine sitting on his desk, and demanded $750 to have the video deleted. The victim sent a total of $600, then texted Kane to leave him alone. Kane, allegedly, did not, and began demanding more money, including $1,250 on Nov. 5 - which came with a non--disclosure agreement he demanded the doctor sign.
The victim sent the money and signed the NDA, but then, on Feb. 25, 2022, Kane wrote again and this time demanding semi-annual payments to keep the video away frmo the victim's spouse and the state Board of Registry in Medicine. The victim sent another $1,250, then went to a lawyer.
When the victim responded to further money demands over three months that Kane contact his lawyer, Kane finally made good on his threat and sent a copy of the video to the public-relations office of the victim's employer and called the Boston Public Health Commission to make what he thought was an anonymous complaint that the victim was abusing cocaine, the affidavit states. The city commission then forwarded the complaint to the state Board of Registration in Medicine - which contacted Kane, and to which he then also sent a copy of the video.
The affidavit continues that the second victim also contact a man who called himself "Eric" on the app, in May, 2022, and agreed to meet with him for some paid sex at the Woburn Crowne Plaza - where they began to have sex, but the victim felt uncomfortable and left the room, the affidavit continues.
On May 16, 2022, "Eric" sent Victim 2 a text message from the cellphone number ending 9155 which read, "Remember seeing me in Woburn? I have video footage of you sucking my dick and bending over for me! If you don’t agree to sign this NDA I will be sending this video to all of your family, friends, and colleagues. You have until 2Pm to make a decision." "Eric" went on to demand a $2,000 payment from Victim 2 and for Victim 2 to sign a NDA.
The affidavit says the second victim tried to send $1,300 via CashApp, but couldn't, because Kane's account by that point was blocked for fraud. However, he was able to send the money via the Zelle app - to an account labeled "C.H.", which the affidavit says are the initials of Kane's fiancee.
The victim then blocked Kane's phone number, but Kane then called him from four different numbers demanding more money.
Once the FBI interviewed the victims and got a look at their text messages and apps, it then became a matter of obtaining records from app and phone companies and Google to track the origins of the messages and phone calls to Kane and his fiancee, the affidavit continues - adding that police in Silver Spring responded to a 911 domestic-violence call at their then home there and that two months later, she obtained a protection order against Kane in a court in New York.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Literally
This guy literally fu@ked around and found out.
Easy fix
Legalize coke.
I'm not offended that this guy messed around with a dude and did blow off the clock, and I wouldn't be if I were his patient.
read the whole article
Your "easy fix" wouldn't have done anything to protect victim 2 from blackmail, and it would still have left victim 1 vulnerable to blackmail for the sexual part of the encounter.
No, "I'll tell your spouse, and all your friends, that you cheated with me if you don't pay up" isn't as scary a threat as "give me money or I'll turn you in for illegal possession of drugs, and tell your spouse you cheated on me." But the non-cocaine part of that is exactly what he's accused of threatening victim 2 with, and victim 2 took it seriously enough to send money.
There are good arguments for legalizing drugs, but this isn't one of them.
Will you stop?
Your uninformed, asinine takes are a real drag, man. You think you’re railing against conventional wisdom, but you’re actually just aggressively ignorant.
Your participation here
Is entirely voluntary.
You first.
Will is unpredictable and he’s right once in a purple moon. No mean streak whatsoever
The same can’t be said for you,
Reckless behavior is not something I associate with a physician
Both behaviors in this instance are troublesome. Whether he's blowing coke or a random bloke, I don't trust his judgement.
How do quite a few Medical students get through school?
Drugs. It's a reality.
which medical school?
If that is the truth, then there should be mandatory testing. If a T operator has to submit to random testing then why aren't physicians?
Students != doctors
When they are in the lecture and lab phases they are not different from any other graduate students.
I also think this is quite overblown. Law students are legendary consumers of drugs too ... emphasis on legend.
So
An extortionist shows white powder on a table in a video, claims it is cocaine, and expects that to be believed without corroborating evidence like, oh, a lab test?
Yeah. Sure thing.
Cocaine and a non-functioning penis
That's a new one..
Not a good doctor and if the
Not a good doctor and if the employer kept him, it would be good to know to avoid in the future.
Board of Registration in Medicine
might show up in the disciplinary decisions, which are on mass.gov
Reading Board of Registration in Medicine decisions is always interesting. Drugs, script-writing, tax evasion, and malpractice.
then again the case might not show up in the decisions
The Board might decide public discipline is too harsh, given the nature of what happened, and an examination of the physician's record and circumstances. The physician might enter a monitoring and counseling program, or take a break from practicing to work on himself.
All legality and morality aside, reckless self-destructive behavior. Hope he finds peace.
The board won't touch this
They are way too busy with pilfering providers and stealing staffers caught up in the opioid disaster. This is way too vague, trivial, and clearly from a very sketchy source.
Powder on the table? Sure ... and? No other evidence? Not like anyone intent on blackmail could dump out some sugar, alter the video, etc. No. Never.
Please explain how any of this means that is he not a good doctor? This was on his own time, with consenting adults and his own damn business. So long as he's sober at work and not getting high on the clinic's supply and does his job, none of this matters.
There are a lot of things they discipline for
I spent some time entertaining myself reading some decisions today. Even "boundary violations," where the physician becomes friendly with a patient without any sexual relationship is a violation.
A catchall violation is "behavior which demonstrates a lack of good moral character and undermines public confidence in the integrity of the medical profession."
"Consenting adults" or not, prostitution and hiring a prostitute are still illegal in the Commonwealth. The Board is strict with criminal violations, even if not prosecuted. The fact that the doc is married is another aspect of lack of good moral character etc.
These Board actions aren't like criminal trials where remaining silent in the face of evidence might be effective. They can ask him whether he's using cocaine, and even if there's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, they can still put him in the drug monitoring program. If they think he's lying, that will be held against him. Remember there's video of him perhaps "intoxicated."
Since not everything is published on the website, we might never know what happens. But given the publicity "undermining public confidence," they will probably do something to check him.
If they have time to bother
Someone walks in with a video and their "interest" in the case is entirely to blackmail the person in the video.
That doesn't even begin to pass the credibility test. For starters, the video could be altered for the purposes of the non-credible reporter.
Yeah, there will be a record of the accusation, and some sort of dismissive determination regarding it in the file with a note about the arrest of the accuser. But that will matter about as much as your "permanent record" in high school provided that nothing more substantive and less aggressively abusive comes to light.
Disclaimer: I know some of the litigators for the board of registration. Moral turpitude allegations in the service of blackmail are the least of their concerns right now.
This doctor
might be suffering from a mental disorder. Perhaps a substance abuse disorder.
Certainly it's reckless behavior to hire a prostitute off an app. Maybe more so when you're married, all moral questions aside.
Just because you don't want to morally condemn a behavior doesn't mean that the recklessness and impairment displayed won't spill over into his practice, with serious consequences for patients.
The Board shouldn't neglect a potential threat to the safety of patients just because of the way they found out about it.
Your vision of morality
Is vastly different from on-the-ground reality.
And lets be honest: in your mind "moral failing according to me" = "mental disorder".
Again, moral opinion versus reality.
The on-the-ground reality is that the board will not take the word of an extortionist and cudgel a doctor with it over private behavior in his own home on his own time. Even if the extortionist's allegations were credible, they really aren't that important.
But do continue to try to legislate how doctors should live in their free time and what medical ways they are allowed to use to appropriately treat people who are different from you, even though it means that kids die.
I suggest
you read some Board decisions. Again, you will be surprised what they discipline for.
https://www.mass.gov/view-board-actions
have a nice evening lbb
I grow weary of this dialectic
precedence
you seem to argue exclusively on the basis of precedence which is a great starting point but definitionally cannot be the entire picture.
more pointedly, the medical board's history cannot be used to dismiss wholesale an argument about changing attitudes in the academia around mental health.
“ Disclaimer: I know some of
“ Disclaimer: I know some of the litigators for the board of registration. Moral turpitude allegations in the service of blackmail are the least of their concerns right now.”
When losing an argument, claim inside knowledge.
Please pass the salt.
This might not be his first time at the rodeo
If you search for his name + Maryland, this pops up on the interwebs:
https://dailyvoice.com/maryland/montgomery/news/dating-app-robber-arrest...
looks like he figured out
looks like he figured out there's more money to be had if he can go through with the sex.
That's a New One
Hey, I'm going to blackmail you so please sign this NDA.
If you squeal on me I will sue you per our NDA agreement.
As they say, you can't make this shit up.
Sometimes when we hear Mr.
Sometimes when we hear Mr. Common Sense Voice arguing with Mr. No Common Sense Voice before we do something that could easily go all wrong, it's a moment that we should realize there IS a mentally healthy reason to hear such voices in our heads.
Sex, money and NDA
I am surprised to not see the name Trump in this.
This scenario is older than time
I used to work for a 'dating website' almost 15 years ago now, and I was the call center supervisor. I talked to more people who had been robbed, raped, assaulted, identity stolen, etc, etc. etc. If you could name it, I've probably talked to someone that it happened too.
Instead of calling police, they would call our Customer Service.. for reasons I still will never fully understand except that maybe they called because we might do something like give over customer names, etc. (we wouldn't)
Our reply was always the same. "Don't call us, call the police. We are happy to work with any police investigation". Most people didn't like that, but I repeated it over and over again. Its all I could really say.
But I'd have to listen to people tell me what happened and hope I would cave and 'do something'. But we were instructed by legal to just repeat "call the police".
Point: If this happens to you, call the police. Don't pass GO, don't send 200 dollars. Just call the police right away. Amazingly enough they actually will help and protect you. The sooner you do, the better.
There are too many people online who prey on people just to do this. The internet is not a safe place, and add sex or drugs to the mix, and its downright dangerous. And people wonder why I seldom meet people off the internet anymore..
I swear I was part supervisor, part crisis counselor, and part marriage counselor at this place. It just turned me off to wanting to meet people off the internet for a very, very long time. I also was relieved when I switched roles to a non-customer facing role. It was burning me out.
Was this OB or the colloquial MH?
If so, I can imagine why there may be reticence to call the PoPo for m4m SA.
what the Tuck u tryna say
we need a glossary so we can understand your post
If you know you know
If you know you know
It's middle aged gay male jargon from the pre smart phone and Grindr era. It's kind of inside baseball and even spelling but out isn't going to really get you there tbh.
why yes it was
But the hesitant was from catty queens who wanted info as ammo, not that they were hinderance of calling the police.
There IS a shame aspect of it too. Esp if drugs were involved. Many people were ashamed they let it happen (much like these people).
dup
dup