Baltimore businessman who paid $90,000 for sex pleads guilty

Taylor DeVille, The Baltimore Sun
·2 min read

A Baltimore financier pleaded guilty this week to charges for transporting a woman across state lines for prostitution.

Charles “Chuck” Nabit, who owns the Westport Group LLC, was charged in February by the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office after he paid a woman for sex and took her from Maryland to South Florida around July 29 in 2019.

The case against Nabit, 64, stems from charges against an alleged trafficker, Deangelo Johnson, who was indicted in October 2019 after an investigation that began in Howard County. Charges against Johnson, to which he has pleaded not guilty, say he used “force, fraud and coercion” and took “half or all” of the money the women working for him had earned.

Nabit paid Johnson at least $90,000 for sex with women beginning in March 2019, according to his plea agreement. He brought women to his downtown office, his car and other Baltimore locations for sex.

Three women said that Nabit recorded their sex acts with a Go Pro camera despite their objections, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Nabit, who previously owned Mountain Manor Treatment Center, an addiction treatment center in Baltimore, supplied drugs to some of the women with whom he was paying Johnson for sex, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

One victim “repeatedly discussed her drug addiction in text messages and expressed her desire to obtain treatment” to Nabit, and had submitted an application for treatment at Mountain Manor Treatment Center after Nabit was no longer an owner, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In May 2019, the woman’s mother — with whom Nabit communicated “on several occasions” about her daughter’s drug use — told Nabit that she had died of a drug overdose, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

“It is unfortunate that the prostitutes with whom my client met had existing drug habits — like the overwhelming majority of people who engage in prostitution,” said Steven Allen, Nabit’s attorney.

Nabit has completed hundreds of hours of “intensive therapy” since charges were brought, Allen said.

In a statement, Nabit said, “I am fully responsible for my behavior,” and expressed remorse for the “incredible sadness, shame, and hurt to those I love the most.”

Nabit faces up to 10 years in prison for transporting an individual to engage in prostitution. His sentencing is scheduled for June 24 at 9:30 a.m.