Posted on 09/10/2007 8:23:54 AM PDT by Millee
The downturn in the housing market appears to have driven two Westchester homeowners to desperate and illegal measures.
New Rochelle Police raided a 3-bedroom home on North Avenue Friday night arresting four alleged prostitutes and the homeowners.
The house, they say, had been turned into a brothel complete with heavy shades over all the windows and a red ribbon placed out by the sidewalk to indicate they were open for business.
Richard Werner and Heather Mezzenga are charged with promoting prostitution. The two are both mortgage brokers who moved out of the house roughly two years ago so they could begin renovating a home on Mountain Road in Pleasantville.
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New Rochelle neighbors told CBS 2 the house had originally been listed for $750,000 but didn’t sell even after the price had been dropped to $600,000.
David Saperstein said, “He couldn’t get his price, then he rented,” but a series of families came and went and the house fell into apparent neglect until new occupants apparently arrived two weeks ago.
Saperstein says the lawn was cut, and heavy shades were put up on all the windows but he never saw the new neighbors.
“The air conditioning was running all day and no one’s there,” he told us. “But at night there’s five, six, seven cars there.”
Natalie Nanzo said she had even thought about buying the house when it first went on the market and couldn’t quite get over the allegations that the home had been turned into a brothel.
“I’m in shock,” she said, “because these people were business people. I can’t believe they would be involved in prostitution.”
One of the couple’s Pleasantville neighbors seemed pretty sure business problems were at the root of the shocking news. “I know they’re mortgage brokers,” Peter Passidomo said. “And I know it’s been a tough business, so I assume they might have had financial difficulty.”
He said the front of the Mountain Road home had been under renovation for the entire two years the couple had lived next door with their little boy, who appeared to be of Kindergarten age.
Both homeowners, as well as the four alleged prostitutes, who range in age from 21 to 30, are free on bail.
I know when money’s tight, I’m always tempted to open a brothel.
Now that’s an idea I never considered...
We need pictures (of all the accused) to determine guilt or innocence.
Mortgage brokers... pimps... I dunno, I kind of see it as similar business.
Kinda cool that they lived in Pleasantville. I don’t know why, it just is.
:)
I just went through a house purchase, and our mortgage broker is actually a pretty good guy. But there’s no doubt the industry as a whole has been tarnished with the bad apples and snake-oil salesmen.
Hey, it worked in “Risky Business”!
There is a Reese Whitherspoon joke here somewhere
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are not talking about mere temptation. My clients were forced.”
No disagreement there.
Where in MD are you? I work in Pikesville and live in Howard Co.
Pleasentville? I figure that they would get some cheap place off of Route One in New Rochelle for the "commuter trade."
The People’s County of Montgomery — moved from Gaithersburg to Germantown, working in Rosslyn (VA).
HoCo is somewhat more politically tolerable than MontCo or PG.
I’m not interested in a mortgage, but possibly working for the brothel. ;)
Some Jokes write themselves.
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