Update: (Even) More Legal Woes for Drug Kingpin and Slumlord Milton Tillman

According to a source, two homes owned by Milton Tillman’s New Trend Development Company were raided by police a total of three times in the summer of 2009.  A large quantity of drugs was found in 2628 McElderry Street, and drugs were also found in 515 N. Streeper Street.

More Legal Woes for Drug Kingpin and Slumlord Milton Tillman

Milton Tillman is back in court again, and this time his legal woes have nothing to do with his drug dealing in Baltimore City.  Apparently being a drug kingpin isn’t as lucrative as it once may have been, and he’s now the defendant in multiple foreclosure lawsuits filed by a Mr. David Cohen of the law firm Cohen & Forman, LLC.

Case Number 24O09003503:  Total debt $875,981.55

The affected properties are as follows:

• 1509 E. 28th Street
• 2932 McElderry Street
• 401 N. Rose Street
• 5201 Invahoe Avenue
• 623 Melville Avenue
• 515 N. Streeper Street
• 707 N. Lakewood Avenue
• 317 N. Gilmor Street
• 2628 McElderry Street
• 3002 McElderry Street
• 506 N. Ellwood Avenue
• 530 N. Ellwood Avenue
• 607 N. Ellwood Avenue
• 742 N. Kenwood Avenue
• 740 N. Kenwood Avenue
• 1053 N. Kenwood Avenue
• 2607 E. Chase Street
• 2816 E. Chase Street
• 2114 E. Hoffman Street
• 623 N. Curley Street
• 605 N. Curley Street
• 415 N. Belnord Avenue
• 2022 Robb Street
• 742 Bartlett Avenue
• 2421 E. Madison Street
• 1607 Riggs Avenue
• 928 N. Collington Avenue
• 2718 Ashland Avenue

Case Number 24O09003452:  Total debt is $69,458.08

• 819 E. Lakewood Avenue

Case Number 24O09003449:  Total debt is $29,007.13

• 2114 E. Federal Street

2132 N. Fulton Avenue

This part of the city is simply a sea of blight.  Everywhere you look, you’ll find entire blocks of boarded-up blighted homes.  With no grocery stores, pharmacies, or other “useful” businesses close by, it would be hard to draw people to this area or keep the people who live there now.

Property address:  2132 N. Fulton Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

Property owner:  Elton Galloway, 1925 (or 1917, depends on who you believe) Hope Street, Baltimore, MD 21218

City Council District and contact:  District 7, Belinda Conaway

The owner of this property, Elton Galloway, probably doesn’t worry about having to go to housing court, since he seems to spend a lot of time in and out of criminal court.  A petty drug dealer with a history of violent crimes, he clearly has bigger fish to fry than worrying about his house on N. Fulton Avenue.  However, we do wish the city would condemn the home, and sell it to someone who would fix it and live in it — and perhaps they could help Belinda Conaway clean up this neighborhood.  Don’t people deserve better?

2132 N. Fulton Avenue

156 N. Decker Avenue

Property address:  156 N. Decker Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224

Property owner:  Walter & Patricia Johnson, 6910B Windsor Mill Road, Baltimore, MD 21207

City Council District and contact:  District 1, James Kraft

On the surface, this property doesn’t look that bad, beyond the fact that it’s boarded up and vacant.  However, according to a neighbor, this has become a nuisance property — attracting drug addicts who hide in the rear yard.

We have had dumping in the past and have had 311 and a volunteer group out to clean it up twice. We frequently [see] drug users hanging out by the back door and shooting up.  There are definitely needles in the “yard” and I often kick people out of there.  [Kids] hang out on the steps constantly.  It’s been vacant as long as I’ve lived here (3 years).

Again, this illustrates the underlying problem with boarded-up homes, especially the ones owned by absentee investors.  Their properties end up being everyone else’s problem — between trash and crime — it’s an unacceptable situation, one that the City could fix, simply by enforcing the laws and making the penalties tougher.

156 N. Decker Avenue

Rear of 156 N. Decker Avenue

8 N. Ellwood Avenue: The Saga

We received an email from one of the neighbors who has been watching 8 N. Ellwood Avenue go from bad to worse, and thought it would be interesting to share this with our readers, as we think there are several lessons to be learned from this.

When I moved to this block in July 2005, the house was relatively quiet. A middle-aged man, James Sidebottom, was living there at the time. He seemed friendly enough until around early 2007 when several prostitutes and their drug-dealing pimps moved into the property. The situation got worse around Memorial Day of 2007 when they were constantly hanging outside the property during the wee hours of the night. One of the most interesting conversations that my wife and I heard at this property was when a hooker shouted out at 7AM one morning, “F**k you bitch! Everyone knows that I give the best p***y on this block!” The police knew that the situation was bad enough that they ended up raiding the house on two occasions in August and October 2007. The second raid resulted in the arrests of Mr. Sidebottom and a prostitute, Ayanna Murray for CDS possession. Sidebottom was given 2 years probation, but the charges against Ms. Murray were dropped.

After the raid I began working with the state’s attorney’s office for housing code enforcement to have a drug nuisance suit filed. After a few months of trying to get the police to send their raid paperwork to the SA’s office, we were finally able to get the tenants evicted in February 2008. I spoke with the owner, David Rotz, a few weeks after the eviction (while he was securing the property). He basically said that the tenants had done so much damage to the property that there was no way that he could afford to fix it. Before the raid occurred, I learned that Sidebottom was not paying his rent, yet the Rotzes would not evict him or the other illegal tenants because they feared retribution.

James Sidebottom had several drug arrests dating back to 1988, but was relatively clean between 1999 and 2007. As I mentioned before, he was friendly until the time that the hookers moved in. My theory is that he fell off the wagon sometime in 2006 or 2007, and his supplier made a deal with him to give him drugs in exchange for agreeing to let the hookers live at the property.

The most glaring problem here is with the enforcement of our laws. A landlord wants to get his tenant out, but can’t do it because of fear? What does this say about the legal system in Baltimore City? Charges are dropped, probation is handed out like candy on Halloween, and in the meantime — the neighbors are stuck with a nuisance house. Where’s the justice for the decent people who live on this block? While we commend this neighbor for getting involved, it shouldn’t have to require half the neighborhood and countless emails and phone calls to get our State’s Attorneys to indict and convict our criminal element. We have nuisance property laws on the books — hold your elected officials accountable! (Yes, the position of State’s Attorney is an elected position.)

As for the property owner, this home has been vacant for over a year, and it’s creating yet another nuisance (and eyesore) for the surrounding neighbors. This is only one of many stories we hear about speculative investors who move into a neighborhood and then can’t (or won’t) fulfill their obligation to the community, with regard to safety and quality of life issues. With little or no restriction, this story is repeated over and over again, in neighborhoods across Baltimore. We hope the City takes this home away from Mr. Rotz and hands it over to someone who actually wants to be part of this thriving neighborhood and will fix up the house to live in.