GORHAM – Jittery about safety and concerned about “inaction by the police department,” Gorham neighbors of three suspects arrested last month on sex trafficking charges arranged to meet this week with police and the Cumberland County deputy district attorney.

The neighbors sought the meeting for an investigation update.

The three suspects shared a home at 19 Woodland Road in a quiet, wooded Gorham area.

One of the suspects is free on bail while two other suspects remained behind bars on Tuesday.

“We are very scared and concerned about our neighborhood,” a resident wrote in an email to Town Councilor Suzanne Phillips on March 29.

Several neighbors on Woodland Road and Highmeadow Drive were to meet with Gorham Police Chief Ronald Shepard, Lt. Christopher Sanborn and Cumberland County Deputy District Attorney Megan Elam at the Gorham Police Department at 3:30 p.m., on Wednesday, April 2, after the American Journal deadline.

An email about the meeting written by a neighbor describes the meeting as “an opportunity to express concern regarding the inaction by the police department and to ask questions related to our safety once the suspects have posted bail and are back at their residence.”

The email also said that neighbors had contacted police and the Department of Health and Human Services on numerous occasions about “activities at 19 Woodland Road” during the last three years.

Police did not respond to a call for a comment by Wednesday’s deadline.

On March 18, Elam announced the arrests of Gorham residents Klein Fernandes, 27, Tamika Dias, 34, and Jeremy Seeley, 31, following an investigation by police, the district attorney’s office and the FBI.

The district attorney’s office reported at that time that Fernandes and Dias were each charged with two counts of aggravated sex trafficking, a Class B crime; and Seeley was charged with two counts of sex trafficking, a Class D crime.

The case involves an unnamed 19-year old woman, who the district attorney’s office said had been exploited and “required to engage in commercial sex acts.”

“The victim fled from the defendants when she was told that she might be sold to a pimp from Boston,” the district attorney’s office alleged.

A Cumberland County Jail spokesman on Tuesday said Fernandes is being held on $50,000 cash bail and Dias on $20,000 cash bail. Gorham Detective Sgt. Dana Thompson said Fernandes and Dias have been arraigned.

A district court clerk said Fernandes and Dias are scheduled for a hearing on Tuesday, June 3, but a time had not set yet.

A spokeswoman at the jail said Seeley had been released on $160 bail with a court arraignment date set for 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 16, in district court.

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