The suspected brothel and Silot's residence, both rentals, operated in a part of East Baltimore near Patterson Park that has recently renovated rowhouses, trendy restaurants and a fast-growing Hispanic community centered on Eastern Avenue and Broadway. Butchers Hill bills itself "Baltimore's friendliest neighborhood."
The place on Collington, just south of Butchers Hill in Upper Fells Point, is a half-block from Salt, a "new American tavern" acclaimed for its food and atmosphere. Across the street, a brick-front rowhouse with Brazilian walnut floors, stainless steel kitchen appliances and a roof deck with a water view is listed for sale at $635,000.
Barry Glassman, president of the Butchers Hill Community Association, called his neighborhood relatively quiet and trouble-free. The street-level prostitution that dogged Patterson Park for many years has been "totally alleviated" on the Butchers Hill side, Glassman said.
Neighbors alerted police to suspicions about the houses. Charging documents in the case say that the stream of Hispanic men coming and going at the Collington address "had drawn the attention of numerous neighbors and members of the Butchers Hill Community Association who had lodged countless complaints about the activity in this home."
Glassman said he saw "lots of coming and going" behind the Lombard house. "That confirmed what to then had been an unfounded rumor," he said.
It's unclear how long prostitution might have been going on. Glassman said he made his observation about three months before the arrests. Meanwhile, police apparently built an investigation - something Lombardi said "takes a lot of time and resources."
She said rumors swirl about brothels throughout Baltimore. Sometimes, she said, local teenagers are lured into prostitution by their boyfriends. Other times foreign women - Mexicans, Koreans, Ukrainians are among the groups Lombardi said she has heard about - become part of the city's sex trade. Police statistics on the extent of the problem are limited.
"This is all literally happening right under our noses," said Sidney Ford, who runs You Are Never Alone, a Baltimore prostitution outreach and awareness group.
Landlords for the two properties, who live in Owings Mills and Patterson Park, according to property records, could not be reached yesterday. Glassman said he has spoken with the owner of the Lombard house, who "assured us this has been brought to a halt."
