A runaway teen who was pimped out by a rogue NYPD detective will get $1.25 million for her shocking ordeal, the Daily News has learned.
The pact ends a 7-year-old case in which a woman identified only by the initials H.H. argued that police brass could have spared her agony and humiliation if they had acted sooner to deal with Detective Wayne Taylor.
Taylor, who was once an undercover officer, had a stack of complaints for violations including misusing his authority and having sex with prostitutes.
Lawyers for the city and the victim, who was 13 and is now a young woman, reached the settlement last month and are finalizing the paperwork in her Brooklyn federal lawsuit.
Woman allegedly pimped by cop at 13 years old gets OK to sue city
Taylor got hold of H.H. in January 2008 and forced her into prostitution before passing her to another pimp.
The ex-narcotics detective later pleaded guilty in the case. Court papers said Taylor was the subject of 25 complaints while he was with the Narcotics Division. He was cleared three times, but the remainder of the complaints were pending or couldn’t be determined.
Judge Nina Gershon decided in August it was reasonable for jurors to think if Taylor had been “adequately investigated and disciplined, he would not have felt empowered to force H.H. into prostitution.”
A Law Department spokesman said, “This was a tragic case involving the criminal behavior of an individual operating outside the scope of his official position with the NYPD.”
Between Gershon letting the case go forward, the spokesman said, and “the impact that continuing this case would have on this young woman, settling the matter was in the best interests of the parties.”
A month of horror began for the victim, a former ballet dancer from Brooklyn, when she was invited to dance at a party for money in January. The proposal came from a relative of Zelika (Mommy Z) Brown, a woman claiming to be Taylor’s wife.
The party was at Brown’s place and the relative “sold” H.H. to Brown for $500. H.H. tried to get out, but Taylor allegedly told her he was a detective “and if you don’t do what I say, I will put you out on the street and arrest you for prostitution.” From there, she was forced into a revolting existence of sex work and beatings and lived on Red Bulls.
H.H.’s lawyer said Taylor and Brown sold the youth to another pimp, who raped her and forced her into more prostitution. That pimp later sent her to another pimp, who released her, court papers said.
Taylor pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping. In a 2015 jailhouse affidavit, said in his undercover work he was “trained in how to function as a criminal, empowered to believe I could get away with unlawful activities.”
H.H., now in her early 20s, is living in Long Island, working and going to school, according to her lawyer, Robert Tolchin.
“No monetary award can ever give the plaintiff back her innocence or youth, but it certainly will enable her to put her life together.”