CMPD targets nuisance properties

The U.S. attorney’s office is threatening to seize a hotel near Charlotte-Douglas International Airport that federal agents say has been a hub for drug deals and sex trafficking.

What was until recently the Red Roof Inn on Queen City Drive is the most recent example of the city targeting nuisance properties, which can be hotbeds for crime in struggling communities.

Charlotte ordinances allow the city to deem an establishment a nuisance based on pervasive crime and to use the threat of seizure as incentive for property owners to fix the problem. In some cases, owners have been prosecuted if they were viewed as complicit.

Investigators say staff members at the Queen City Drive motel were complicit in the drug dealing and prostitution that have gone on there since at least 2012, and that the owner has been slow to address police concerns.

 

Prostitutes told investigators that pimps paid off maids and motel managers to not report crimes. Earlier this year, investigators orchestrated a fake crack-cocaine deal as a front desk clerk watched. No one called police. In February, after someone inquired about buying drugs, investigators say a clerk said to wait 20 minutes and her boyfriend would show up with marijuana for sale.

Tenants said drug addicts would knock on doors late at night. On four occasions, undercover informants bought crack cocaine from dealers who had taken up permanent residence in Room 139. On a review for Priceline.com, a hotel booking site, one former tenant said, “My 22 month old grandson was playing on the floor and crawled under the bed where he pulled out a used needle.”

Jill Westmoreland Rose, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, said she could not comment on the case, but urged “anyone who turns a blind eye to illegal activities taking place on their property to take notice. Whether via a criminal indictment or a civil action, we will use every tool in our arsenal to dismantle criminal enterprises, combat drug trafficking and sex trafficking, and bring relief to communities afflicted by violent crimes. ”

A lawyer for Chandresh Patel, whom investigators identified as the motel’s owner, said he was working to resolve problems.

But the order, signed earlier this month, notifies Patel and his company that the Red Roof Inn property may be subject to forfeiture.

Nuisance properties targeted

Mark Newbold, an attorney for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, said the city’s goal is not to take away property.

“What gets something on the radar is a spike in crime,” Newbold said. “And if the crimes continue, the owner can be accused of being an ostrich (putting their head in the sand), for lack of a better term.”

The motel joins a growing list of properties that have been shut down after CMPD declared them public nuisances, some as part of criminal proceedings.

▪ A judge ordered Club 935 off Freedom Drive and West Morehead Street to close last month after owner Adolph Shiver was sentenced to nine months in prison after pleading guilty to tax fraud and money laundering. Police affidavits described the club as a frequent source of drug transactions and violence, which caused the N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission to suspend the club’s liquor license.

▪ In 2013, the owner of Vox on Wilkinson Boulevard was barred from reopening the club at that location. Curtis Leak acknowledged that his building was a public nuisance in 2010 and signed an agreement with the city to keep it open that required him to follow a stringent security plan. Three years later, a judge ruled he had not kept up his side of the bargain, closed the nightclub and barred Leak and his wife from operating an establishment that serves alcohol for a year.

▪ This year, police filed documents in federal court saying a strip mall at Beatties Ford Road and LaSalle Street was a nuisance. Officers documented eight drug crimes from 2012 to 2014. In January, the CMPD’s nuisance abatement coordinator sent a letter to a married couple who own the mall, saying the city would take civil action if any more crimes occur on the property, according to court documents. Police say one drug arrest and a number of calls for service have been made to CMPD since that letter was sent.

Newbold said the city was trying to get another property deemed a nuisance. He declined to name the business, saying it had recently come under new management and that officers hoped that would lead to changes.

Newbold said CMPD can’t discuss a business that it’s considering taking action against.

“There are some difficulties of me branding a club as a problem,” he said. “Many of these hotels are making efforts with the police. And people need a place to stay. The displacement of those people – it’s something we have to consider.”

Sex trafficking, drug sales

In November 2013, officers in the Freedom Division nominated the Red Roof Inn on Queen City Drive as a nuisance. At the time, it was in the top 10 for repeat calls about prostitution, drugs and robberies, according to the affidavit.

During the 2012 Democratic National Convention, for example, agents conducted a prostitution sting at the motel after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip that Shahid Muslim was prostituting women and girls there, the affidavit says. Agents encountered two teenage girls during the sting, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old, FBI Special Agent Shawnda Drummond says in the affidavit. Muslim was convicted of sex trafficking in federal court.

In another case, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police received a complaint in 2013 from a 15-year-old that a pimp would pick her up at her Concord home and take her to the Red Roof Inn to prostitute herself, Drummond says in the affidavit.

The affidavit also cites crack cocaine purchases in rooms at the motel as recently as March.

Illegal activity continued despite law enforcement training staff in October 2014 on how to recognize, reduce and prevent criminal activity, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit also cites complaints about the motel on Tripadvisor.com.

“This hotel is a drug and prostate (sic) hang out would not recommend this to anyone rooms aren’t bad but,” read one complaint. “It is just too dangerous to stay at this hotel the Charlotte Police Department need to clean this place up disgusting all I smell is marijuana and see prostitutes everywhere trying to give out their phone numbers and find out what room you’re in.”

Owner says he’s making changes

Police had trouble getting Patel to respond to their concerns as far back as 2013, Drummond says in the affidavit.

Patel’s lawyer, Hugo “Hap” Pearce, declined to say whether Patel still owns the property.

Pearce released a statement saying “the owners of the Red Roof Inn were recently advised of alleged criminal activity ... at the hotel in the past. An investigation is currently underway and the owners and their attorneys are in regular communications with the U.S. Attorney’s office, and are taking actions to resolve the issues raised in the affidavit in this case.”

The motel has new management, and “new procedures have been implemented to promptly eliminate the conditions that may have led to any criminal activity in the past,” according to the statement.

In a statement, the Red Roof Inn chain said: “Once we were made aware of the situation, swift and immediate action was taken to terminate this franchise agreement with the brand. The property is no longer part of the Red Roof brand.”

The company said it is working with federal authorities and is contacting people who’ve made reservations there to find them other accommodations.

Staff researcher Maria David contributed.

This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 1:22 PM with the headline "CMPD targets nuisance properties."