NEWS IN BRIEF: About Hair Owner A No-Show

Duncan Purdy, owner of the Cambridge-based salon and antique store About Hair, was scheduled to be sentenced yesterday at the Middlesex County Courthouse. But the sentencing was postponed for reasons that were not immediately clear.

Speaking to The Crimson during a recess yesterday afternoon, Purdy’s attorney J. Daniel Silverman said that he had appeared in court but was told by officials that Purdy was in custody and had not been brought in.

Because court statutes state that the defendant must be present for the event, the sentencing could not take place.

Purdy was found guilty of “maintaining a house of prostitution and deriving support from the earnings of a prostitute” on Feb. 23. About Hair is currently not in operation.

According to Silverman, Purdy has been in detention and awaiting a sentence. Silverman has requested another sentencing date for his client, whose bail was revoked after the verdict was announced.

Silverman said that he anticipates Purdy will get “a minimum of two years on each count...There may be a two-for-one special, or he may have to do them separately.”

A “two-for-one special” would mean that Purdy would concurrently serve time for operating a house of prostitution and sharing in a prostitute’s earnings.

“Each charge carries up to five years,” Silverman added. “[The judge] can go up to 10, but that’s highly unlikely.”

Purdy’s business is “probably all going to be sold, maybe at an auction or going-out-of-business sale,” Silverman said. “For his house, there may be an auction...he can’t support himself while in jail, and he has two children.”

James Poulos, a family friend who had known Purdy for 30 years, had come to the courthouse in the hopes of supporting Purdy yesterday.

“I like him, he’s a good man... It was a shock to hear about it,” Poulos said. “He was visiting and everything seemed fine, and then five days later we get a call and learn that he is in jail.”

Purdy was also scheduled for a pretrial hearing yesterday in connection with a rape charge still pending against him.

According to Silverman, the two women involved in Purdy’s prostitution ring had not been prosecuted. One of them was taken into custody and given a pretrial probation. The other woman was not arrested.

—Yelena S. Mironova