Maryland announces civil lawsuit in case involving demands of sex for rent

By Brian WitteThe Associated PressANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland’s attorney general filed a civil lawsuit on July 19 against an Eastern Shore landlord and his company, alleging a pattern of gender-based housing discrimination involving sexual harassment and demands to exchange sex for rent.Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown speaks at a news conference on April 6, 2023, in Baltimore. Brown filed a civil lawsuit on July 19, 2024, against an Eastern Shore landlord and his company, alleging a pattern of gender-based housing discrimination involving sexual harassment and demands to exchange sex for rent. (Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun via AP, File)The lawsuit, which was filed in Wicomico County Circuit Court, is the first case to be brought by the attorney general’s Civil Rights Division, which was formed in January.“For too long predatory landlords have taken advantage of people in financial and housing crisis by abusing their power as housing providers to make sexual demands of tenants or prospective tenants – often low-income women and single mothers,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said. “In Maryland, that ends today.”Jonathan Smith, who is chief of the attorney general’s Civil Rights Division, said the allegations began as early as 2018 in units that were “in deplorable conditions”...