Brian Folks Credit: Courtesy of Burlington Police Department
A jury found Brian Folks guilty Thursday evening of coercing numerous women addicted to heroin to prostitute themselves as part of a drug and sex ring he operated out of Burlington for several years.

The case, heard in U.S. District Court in Burlington, was the first involving sex trafficking to go before a jury in Vermont. Judge William Sessions presided over the two-week trial.

Kate O’Neill wrote about the allegations against Folks in April as part of Hooked, her ongoing Seven Days series on Vermont’s opioid epidemic.

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“I thought sex trafficking was something that happened to people in other countries or to women who were brought to this country to work in massage parlors,” writes Kate O’Neill. “I had no idea it was something that could happen to my sister.” O’Neill explores the intersection of opioid addiction and sexual exploitation in Vermont as part of her yearlong series “Hooked: Stories and Solutions from Vermont’s Opioid Crisis.” Later this month, a man who allegedly sold drugs and prostituted women is expected to be the first sex trafficking defendant to face a Green Mountain jury.
Folks faced 16 charges, including conspiracy to distribute heroin and crack, coercion of five women to perform commercial sex acts, and a firearms offense.

After about six hours of deliberation, the jury found Folks guilty on all counts but the weapons charge. Folks used a notepad to record each verdict as it was read but displayed no emotion.

The prosecution, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Darrow, portrayed Folks as a manipulative pimp who used drugs and sexual violence to maintain a “harem” of prostitutes and drug runners.

Folks’ attorneys, Mark Kaplan and Natasha Sen, impugned the credibility of the women who testified against him. Folks took the stand Wednesday and described himself as playing a supportive role in an operation that benefited the women equally.

Folks, who faces up to life in prison, will be sentenced at a future date. 

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Trafficked: How the Opioid Epidemic Drives Sexual Exploitation in Vermont

“I thought sex trafficking was something that happened to people in other countries or to women who were brought to this country to work in massage parlors,” writes Kate O’Neill. “I had no idea it was something that could happen to my sister.” O’Neill explores the intersection of opioid addiction and sexual exploitation in Vermont as part of her yearlong series “Hooked: Stories and Solutions from Vermont’s Opioid Crisis.” Later this month, a man who allegedly sold drugs and prostituted women is expected to be the first sex trafficking defendant to face a Green Mountain jury.

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Derek Brouwer was a news reporter at Seven Days 2019-2025 who wrote about class, poverty, housing, homelessness, criminal justice and business. At Seven Days his reporting won more than a dozen awards from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and...

3 replies on “Brian Folks Convicted in First-Ever Sex Trafficking Trial in Vermont”

  1. Re: “a drug and sex ring he operated out of Burlington for several years.”

    Why did this go on for years and our police didn’t know? Something is wrong with that.

  2. funny, (and not in a funny way) this is not the first sex trafficking case i’ve heard about..
    one was organized crime, that operated those massage parlors all over vermont that used illegal immigrants, and the other was a few single pimps (like this guy above) that picked up girls in vermont, and trafficked them down in boston..
    strange how 7 days doesn’t remember those cases.

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