'Different men here every day': Suspect charged with trafficking women out of Southgate home
SOUTHGATE, Mich. (FOX 2) - Neighbors on Superior Street in Southgate say they would see vehicles full of men waiting to visit a home on the block, but they only recently found out why.
Last week, Michael Richard Navoy, 70, of Allen Park, was arrested for allegedly trafficking women out of a home he owns in Southgate.
"I did. I was like ‘I wonder what’s going on over there,'" neighbor Alicia Manning said when asked if she noticed anything off at the home. "There was different men here every day. I thought it was an illegal massage parlor."
Navoy is now facing charges of accepting earnings from a prostitute, human trafficking - forced labor resulting in commercial sexual activity, human trafficking - forced labor, using a computer to commit a crime, and keeping a house of prostitution.
Those who know him say they had no idea what he was up to.
"Even though there was talk he was up to something none of us could have imagined it was to this extent," said Claude Cotes.
Cotes, a former business associate who has known Navoy for a decade, said he would travel to Canada but was illusive about exactly what he was doing. Cotes believes he may have been traveling to get the victims that would then be trafficked.
"He said he was going to Windsor to help women with their paperwork so they could have access to coming to the States," he said.
Authorities said Navoy is affiliated with suspects arrested and charged last week in connection with human trafficking out of massage parlors in Wayne and Macomb counties. That is being called one of the largest sex trafficking busts to date.
Navoy is currently being held on a $1 million cash bond.