“If they know prostitutes are coming in and out of my house, why didn’t they arrest them,’’ Ahmed said yesterday afternoon in a phone interview a day after the house was shut down for code violations. “Listen, I rent out a couple of rooms to various people because there is a market, but prostitution can happen anywhere, it can happen at any hotel in the city.’’
Ahmed, 74, was convicted in 2004 in Roxbury District Court of keeping a house of prostitution and was sentenced to a year in jail. In 2009, he was convicted of keeping a noisy or disorderly house and sentenced to three months in jail, according to law enforcement officials.
The house on Mount Pleasant Avenue was full of indications that it was being used as a brothel, authorities said.
The first floor contains a waiting room, replete with lounging chairs, a coffee table, and stacks of magazines. Two poster boards are affixed to the wall with handwritten “five-hour house rules’’ and “two-hour house rules.’’ The five-hour room-rental rules permit one reentry into the house, but the two-hour rules stipulate that upon exiting, “all remaining time ends.’’ Five hours costs $50 rent, and two hours costs $25.
The rooms are small and sparsely decorated with mattresses, night stands, and a few pictures cut from women’s fashion magazines such as Elle and Cosmopolitan.
Ahmed has not been criminally charged in his latest run-in with authorities, but Inspectional Services shut down the house Wednesday, placing plywood over the doors and windows and citing him for numerous code violations, including exposed wiring and unsafe porches. Ahmed has been ordered to appear before the department Thursday to specify how he intends to use the house - as a two-family dwelling, as it was permitted, or a rooming house.
“Clearly, he was not using it as a two-family,’’ said Darryl Smith, Inspectional Services assistant commissioner, standing in front of the house yesterday.
