Nearly two dozen men have been arrested for visiting the Plano brothel that was made public when neighbors witnessed the raid on a short-term rental home.
Police said a sex trafficking operation moved to that Plano house from a Dallas short-term rental after a neighbor at the Dallas location hired his own investigator over concerns about illegal activity.
Neighbors at the Dallas location near I-635 and Marsh Lane noticed men coming and going during the day last summer.
“It’s horrible because we walk our dogs around here and there’s an elementary school right down the street and a junior high right there. It’s terrible,” said resident Becky Schutze.
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Attorney Niles Illich lives on the street. He hired a private investigator who confirmed the neighbors' suspicions.
“He made an appointment. He got cleared and he established that in fact it was prostitution going on there,” Illich said.
Dallas Police were contacted and activity in that neighborhood ended.
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Now 23 arrests of men at the Plano house are part of the Dallas Police investigation.
Ranging in age from 27 to 70, the men are charged with solicitation of prostitution. It’s a state jail felony. They were booked at the Dallas County Jail, but their cases are being filed with Collin County prosecutors, Dallas Police said.
Records of the cases were not available Friday.
Plano Police said the September raid in their city was the result of the Dallas Police investigation.
“This is a sex trafficking case,” said Dallas Police Special Operation Major Devon Palk. “This particular operation is closed. There are still potential investigative leads that are being followed.”
Palk would not discuss what happened to the women involved except to say that women in sex trafficking cases are generally treated as victims and offered care from social service agencies.
Palk said short-term rental homes are a change in tactics from where sex trafficking traditionally occurred. It allows traffickers to avoid law enforcement and blend into neighborhoods.
“You can move around from place to place relatively quickly,” Palk said.
Sarah Smith, the new property manager at the Dallas house Friday said she was not serving there last summer when the prostitution accusations surfaced. She said the owner has told her the questionable activity only went on for two days. Smith said the out-of-state owner is now planning to switch to long-term rental of the property. But Smith defended short-term home rentals.
“Short-term rentals are good because who wants to stay in a hotel with 2 beds when you could have four bedrooms and 7 beds,” Smith said.
The city of Dallas is currently considering regulations that could forbid short term rentals in single-family neighborhoods. The city of Plano has also been discussing STR regulations.
Illich said he is glad this situation changed.
“I’m glad to know that this is something that people are concerned about. I’m glad to know that was shut down. I don’t think it was a safe thing,” he said.
Palk said Dallas Police encourage neighbors to report suspicious activity that could be human trafficking.
“The Dallas Police Department is very serious about all forms of human trafficking,” he said.
Police said three guns and more than $6,000 in a case were also seized in the investigation.
