MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Police Chief Maury Richards says a Washington, D.C. landlord faces their third violation of the city’s Drug House Ordinance.
Yuen Yee owns apartment 5 at 311 West King Street. The apartment is managed by William Brown IV, who is Yee’s son.
The Eastern Panhandle Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force discovered the address was a source of a major heroin distribution operation.
Chief Richards obtained an order of abatement for the location. A resident of that apartment identified as Michael White, 57, was arrested at the mid-town 7-Eleven on February 13 after police spotted him conducting illegal drug sales from that apartment.
Shortly after, Kimberly Allen, 55, was arrested inside the apartment during the search. Evidence of crack cocaine and methamphetamine were also found inside of the apartment.
“Under the provisions of the Drug House Ordinance, property owners are subject to fines if they fail to take appropriate action to abate the problem after 30 days of notification. The Order of Abatement announced today contains compliance stipulations including: evicting the problem tenants, other actions to prevent the recurrence of illegal drug activity, and mandating criminal background checks on future tenants to insure they are “free from convictions for prostitution; illegal gambling; illegal possession, storage, or delivery of or trafficking in controlled substances, or other illegal drug activity.”
– Martinsburg PD
This applies to both rental and owner-occupied property. Chief Richards said Wednesday the conditions inside of 311 West King Street were “the worst we have seen so far”.
“It’s absolutely outrageous and unacceptable. This is the first landlord with three drug house violations on the same property. Just look at the history—three drug search warrants and Drug House violations, six arrests, $76,000 in recovered heroin and cocaine, batches of crack cocaine being cooked in a kitchen, and repeated call-after-call-after-call. Can anybody tell me how it’s possible for a responsible landlord or property manager to not know what kind of problems they have?”
Yee and Brown will appear in front of Municipal Judge Dale Buck on March 13 to show evidence that they have complied with the Chief Magistrate’s order to clean the drug issues on their property.