Sometimes a headline says it all. However, that is not true in this case. Believe it or not there is a more surprising fact: the arrest of a Baltimore city firefighter for running an online prostitution ring and unlicensed after-hours club in a warehouse is not his first, but rather is a repeat of something he had been arrested for previously and somehow kept his job.
In 2010, Firefighter Jamar Marvin Simmons, 29, was arrested on sex trafficking charges when he delivered a prostitute to undercover police officers. The officers were responding to an online ad for sex. Simmons somehow managed to keep his job, received one year of supervised probation, and paid a $300 fine.
Yesterday, Simmons and 33-year-old Franklin Coit, were charged following a raid by the FBI’s Human Trafficking Safe Streets Task Force. The task force was investigating an online prostitution ring operating out of a converted warehouse on South Pulaski Street.
Police seized drugs, a .40-caliber handgun, computers, condoms, sex toys, and ledgers showing the scope of the enterprise.
Baltimore city fire officials report that Simmons has now been suspended without pay.