Exclusive | Inside Brooklyns seedy Penn Track sex market where pimps, murder and human trafficking are part of daily life
One of New Yorks’ most notorious pimps was finally caged at the end of July, sentenced to 50 years on charges of human trafficking and ordering the murder of a rival.The trial of Omari “Prince” Scott, 45, opened a window into the seedy world of the “Penn Track” in East New York, Brooklyn, where he ran multiple women.Despite Scott’s conviction, sex workers tell The Post business around Pennsylvania Avenue — also known as “the Blade” — continues as brazenly as usual, with tens of women on the streets selling sex for as little as $85 a time and conditions worse than ever.Meanwhile the NYPD concentrates on “outreach” to sex workers over busting johns.Two women currently working told The Post on condition of anonymity the practices laid bare in Scott’s prosecution — coercion, violence and ruthless competition — remain part of their lives.“The pimp will say, ‘We building something.’ But it’s you building and him collecting.“You think you chose him.
Then you realize you gotta ask to leave, ask to eat, ask to keep some of your own money.”Scott demanded women working for him make $1,000 a night, it emerged at trial, which current workers said was typical.“You gotta have a quota.You don’t make quota, you can’t come inside.
You stay out there till you do, even if it’s 4 a.m.and raining,” one of the women who spoke to The Post said.“[The pimps] sit parked up the block watching.
Not to protect you — to make sure you don’t stop, don’t talk too long, don’t pocket anything.”Even protection, she said, could prove conditional: “If a date gets rough, you call him and maybe he comes, maybe he don’t.If it’s about money though? He comes real quick.”Late at night, the four-block stretch of the Penn Track takes on an unusual rhythm for what would otherwise be a deserted industrial area in a quiet pocket of the city.Photos taken by The Post last week show women clad in little more than high heels, neon thongs or ski...