The chair of America’s Federal Communications Commission spent roughly nine years as a member of a Washington-area Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship that former participants have described as a coercive, cult-like organisation. A Guardian investigation has uncovered disturbing allegations of sexual exploitation, psychological manipulation and coercive control at the centre of the group — raising urgent questions about the man now charged with policing America’s airwaves.
The Fellowship That Spiralled Out of Control
What began as a recovery programme for young people struggling with addiction in the nation’s capital evolved, according to former members, into something far more sinister. The Midtown group, based in the greater Washington DC area, drew in teenagers and young adults — some sent by concerned parents, others seeking help voluntarily — during the 1990s and early 2000s.
At its core stood Michael Quinones, a Vietnam veteran who had battled his own drinking problem and found sobriety through AA. Former members have described him as the group’s undisputed architect, wielding influence over nearly every dimension of his followers’ lives. He determined where they lived, who they dated, what they ate, and even what vehicles they drove. One former participant recalled cleaning Quinones’ house without compensation, alongside other members, as part of what were termed “acts of service.”
Quinones, who died of cancer in 2007, commanded a network of roughly four lieutenants — known internally as “pigeons” — each of whom sponsored their own cohorts. Elizabeth, a former member, explained how the group operated as a tightly controlled pyramid, with Quinones and his inner circle at the apex.
The group held meetings daily — sometimes twice a day — at the Church of the Pilgrims on DuPont Circle, a venue that had hosted an AA meeting since the 1950s. Through sheer persuasion and charisma, Quinones convinced young people that there was only one legitimate path to sobriety, and that deviating from it would invite ruin. Former members say this belief system bred a paralyzing fear of leaving, even when individuals sensed something was deeply wrong.
Allegations of Exploitation and Coercive Control
Fourteen former members spoke to the Guardian, painting a harrowing picture of life inside Midtown. Several alleged that teenage girls and young women were systematically pressured and coerced into sexual relationships with older men — sometimes men decades their senior. In at least one instance, a former participant said she believes what occurred could be classified as sex trafficking.
Tammy S, who joined Midtown in 1996 at the age of 28, recalled how just 72 hours after meeting Quinones, he informed her they would be having sex. She lived with him for two years and, though she acknowledged being older than most of his other partners, noted he once remarked he believed she possessed the mentality of a 13-year-old. She said she overheard conversations among older men discussing the advantages of operating in Maryland, where the age of consent was 16, rather than Virginia, where it stood at 18.
Lacie W remembered men making crude jokes about oral sex in front of young women and teenagers, saying such remarks were designed to normalise behaviour that would otherwise seem unacceptable. “It was said in the form of a joke, but also to pave the way for that to happen,” she said. “Like as if to say, if that happens, it’s not a big deal. It is part of the process.”
Mandi Pagliarini, now 44, joined Midtown at just 15 years old after her parents discovered she was smoking cannabis. She described a regime of strict diets for girls, “verbal lashings,” and a constant cycle of fear and shame — followed, she said, by “love bombing,” a recognised form of psychological manipulation. She was gradually “nudged” toward progressively older men, eventually being directed to Quinones himself. “The consequence of resistance outweighed enduring the act,” she wrote on Instagram.
Claire Perna, who joined at 16 in 2001, recounted how Quinones first approached her when she was only a few months sober. He invited her to his home, and they lay on his bed together — though she left without having sex. When she told her sponsor what had happened, she remembers the look of disappointment and disapproval on his face. By 17, she said she was regularly sleeping with Quinones and other much older men in the group. “I think that group was about men,” she said. “Women were just objects for entertainment.”
Brendan Carr: Victim, Participant, or Both?
Brendan Carr joined Midtown in 1996, when he was approximately 17 years old and a high school senior in McLean, Virginia. He appears to have remained involved for roughly nine years, including during his time at law school. A recorded Midtown speech from 2005, in which he referenced being in his final semester, and a group photograph from a men’s retreat reportedly taken in 2006 — showing Carr standing a few rows behind Quinones — support this timeline.
Yet those who knew Carr during his years in the group offer a markedly different portrait from the allegations levelled at others. Multiple sources described him as a “safe respite” in an environment where young women bore the brunt of forced relationships, restrictive diets, and psychological manipulation. One former member, who said she sponsored young girls and knew the predators well, stated emphatically: “He was never among them.” She added that Carr “would never” have instructed anyone he sponsored to sleep with another person, though “he was sponsored by people who would.”
A woman who dated Carr during his time in the group described him as tender, desperate for approval, and deeply affected by failure. She recalled coming home to find him sobbing at his kitchen table after bombing his LSAT — the standardised test law students must take. “His dad had a whole plan for his life and he wanted so badly to please him,” she said. “He is one of the most tender souls and so desperate to have a place to belong.”
She also recalled how Carr, aware of the strict diets imposed on young women in the group, would “sneak” her french fries — an act she said could have earned him severe punishment. “That sounds like a stupid and small thing,” she reflected, “but he could have been severely punished for that.”
In response to detailed questions, a spokesperson for Carr at the FCC stated: “He did not engage in any of the allegedly illegal conduct or abusive behavior you reference,” adding that “any suggestion that he knew of the allegedly illegal or abusive conduct you point to would be false.” The spokesperson denied Carr was a member of Midtown “up to and through 2006” and did not respond to further questions about his time in the group or his relationship with Quinones.
A Powerful Voice on the Airwaves
Carr’s background has attracted scrutiny given his current position of extraordinary authority. Appointed chair of the FCC by President Trump, he has wielded his power in ways that represent a sharp departure from his predecessors. He threatened to withdraw broadcasters’ licences over news coverage he deemed unfair to the administration, temporarily silenced late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after comments about the murder of Charlie Kirk, and warned broadcasters against airing what he termed “fake polls” ahead of midterm elections.
Carr has been photographed wearing a golden lapel pin bearing Trump’s likeness and has defended his actions as simply compelling broadcasters to “operate in the public interest, not some sort of narrow, partisan interest.” Victor Pickard, a media professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, offered a blunt assessment: “There was never a perfect FCC that exhibited zero partisanship,” he acknowledged. But “never in history,” he said, has there been such an “extreme capture” of the regulator. “Nothing is remotely similar,” he added. “He seems to wake up every day trying to figure out how he can serve Donald Trump.”
A March profile by Bloomberg Businessweek noted that Carr had been largely “unnotable and unnoticed” during his undergraduate years at Georgetown University, where he graduated in 2001. Alumni later scoured their yearbook to find any trace of him — discovering only a single mention among a “slightly sorrowful list of unpictured students.” The article noted his living arrangement in a “group house” in Silver Spring, Maryland, “with a group of home-town buddies.” Public records indicate Carr lived there for approximately two years alongside three other individuals whom sources identify as Midtown members. An internal 2002 Midtown phone directory subsequently placed him at a residence in Vienna, Virginia, shared by three other members, including Francisco Convit — a Venezuelan national now considered a fugitive by the Department of Justice following a 2018 indictment for money laundering.
Carr’s involvement in Midtown has not appeared in any published profile of him. Yet the two biographical details cited in the Businessweek article — his proximity to Washington throughout his education and his shared living arrangements — are consistent with his known Midtown affiliation, according to sources familiar with the group’s inner workings.
What Happened After the Stories Broke
The first public indication that something was seriously amiss at Midtown came in May 2007, when Newsweek published an article titled “Critics Say Washington AA Chapter Is Cultlike.” It described how former members had come to believe the group was “coercive” and “cultlike,” using the trusted AA name to “induce young alcoholics into a radical fringe movement.” Law enforcement officials, the article noted, had been unable to find evidence of wrongdoing.
That was followed in July 2007 by a Washington Post piece describing Midtown as a “rigidly insular world of group homes and socializing, in which older men had sex with teenage girls.” A Montgomery County police sergeant was quoted observing that charges could not be brought because the girls involved were 16 or 17, and such activity was legal. The group issued a statement denying improper acts, saying: “We do not condone underage sex. While we are not the arbiter of other people’s sex conduct, underage sex is illegal and our experience shows that it can endanger your sobriety.”
Shortly after these publications, sources say the Church of the Pilgrims expelled Midtown from its premises. Quinones had been ill, and some of his authority had already shifted to his lieutenants before his death later that year. Over time, former members say, a slow exodus took hold — people simply grew older and moved on. “Once you got to your 30s and 40s, people began to think, ‘What the hell am I doing here?'” one recalled.
An AA group called Midtown still exists today, meeting in suburban Maryland. Sources say it bears little resemblance to the organisation it once was and that no allegations of cult-like behaviour have been levelled against the current iteration, nearly two decades after Quinones’ death.
Why It Matters
The revelations about Midtown and Brendan Carr’s decade-long involvement strike at the heart of democratic accountability. The man who now determines which stories American broadcasters can air, which voices are amplified, and which programmes face regulatory consequences was shaped, in part, by an environment where coercive control was routine and exploitation of young people was embedded in the culture. Whether or not Carr personally participated in the abuse documented by the Guardian, his proximity to an organisation accused of such profound violations demands transparency — particularly from someone entrusted with overseeing the nation’s communications infrastructure. As one former member wrote to Carr: “A man who has the power to control what types of stories the mainstream public have access to is a man who should expect the narrative of his own life to fall under scrutiny.” The public deserves to know whether the FCC chair who now shapes the boundaries of free expression in America has fully reckoned with the lessons of his past.
