Home, Sweet Home

12th Street Brothel Exposed

[That's right, the 12th Street that I LIVE ON! Like, 3 doors down (on the other side of P Street).]

A brothel located in a trendy D.C. neighborhood gets cleared out days before police could move in.

The brothel was believed to be trafficking under age Latino women for more than a year. The apartment building, located near Logan Circle, had lights and activity late Tuesday night according to neighbors, but now it stands vacant.

Neighbors said a steady flow of men went in the front of the home, then out the back, 15 to 30 minutes later.

"They was Latino, I know that much about them. But other than that I don't know," said one resident.

While the man who lived overhead didn't want to talk about the people in the basement, another neighbor was so frightened of retribution from the man who ran the operation, that he didn't want to be identified.

"It's an illegal business. These people are not always nice people. Things happen to your house, to your car, to your person," said a neighbor.

Different young women arrived every few months, the clients mostly showed up during work-day hours.

"There was a prostitution ring in the basement for more than a year."

Undercover investigators described the prostitutes as underage girls. Authorities fear the man who ran the brothel trafficked in women desperate to get to the U.S. from Central America.

"It's very common that they use underage girls, you know, they take them away from their families and they don't have any money," said Michelle Molotsky with Ward 2 Constituent Services.

The apartment appeared to be divided into smaller rooms. Once the property manager learned the tenants had packed up and pulled out, he arrived with a key.

"When did they leave sir?" asked ABC 7's Stephen Tschida, "Sir did you know it was a brothel?"

The property manager seemed surprise about the basement being used for illicit purposes.

"A brothel, what are you talking about," he asked.

Neighbors said in the past few months the prostitution became blatant. Apparently a pimp would bring a prostitute out of the apartment to show a prospective john.

"A vehicle pulled up into the alley a young girl came through the fence got into the vehicle," said one neighbor, "they were probably negotiating a price."

The man who supposedly ran the operation likely moved to another location, and perhaps continue to run his prostitution ring.

[From http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0508/521756.html. Someone should tell that reporter that each new sentence does not need a new paragraph. And no, I had no clue there was a brothel being run in there, although thinking back, I did hear some suspicious things at night every now and then.]