Three accused pimps face a host of charges for trafficking women at a notorious Brooklyn open-air sex market — including two who killed a rival to prevent one of their prostitutes from changing loyalties, the feds allege.
Omari “Sir Prince” Scott, 43, Michael “Victory” Simmons, 40, and Joel David “Sirbar” Forney, 41, were busted in two separate indictments last week.
Orange County Florida Jail Handout
Joel David Forney, also known as “Sirbar,” was charged with three counts of sex trafficking,
Their arrests come as federal and state authorities continue to investigate sex trafficking operations along the “Penn Track” — a strip of road on Pennsylvania Ave. in East New York long known as a neighborhood nuisance sex market.
The feds busted two more alleged pimps working in the area last year, while the Brooklyn D.A.’s office charged a third. A fourth pimp who was arrested in 2022 took a plea deal in Brooklyn Federal Court in November.
Scott, of Brooklyn, and Simmons, of Pittsburgh, were indicted Friday on federal murder in the course of sex trafficking charges, accused of plotting the May 1, 2023 shooting death of Cleveland Clay, a competing pimp.
Simmons pulled the trigger, the feds allege.
Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News
Sex workers on Georgia Ave. near Flatlands Ave. in Brooklyn.
Forney, meanwhile, was arrested Wednesday on charges he forced three women and a teenage girl into performing sex work, showing one of them a photo of a dismembered woman to scare her into into following his twisted commands.
“This is what happens to b—hes who leave their pimps,” Forney told the woman after showing her the gruesome photo on her phone, according to prosecutors.
“We will continue working with our law enforcement partners to eradicate the degradation of women forced into sex work at the Penn Track and elsewhere in the district,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement about Forney’s arrest.
Scott, of Brooklyn, had at least three women doing prostitution work for him between January 2021 and June 2023, two of whom he controlled through “force, fraud and coercion,” federal prosecutors wrote in a Friday court filing.
“Once again I’m gonna knock u out for disrespecting me,” he told one of the women in a June 2022 text message, the feds allege. He also posted video to Instagram where he’s seen berating her and pulling her hair so she faces the camera, according to the feds.
In April of last year, he learned that another sex worker was planning to leave him to work for Clay, who also operated on the Penn Track, according to the feds.
Video from April 30 shows the sex worker getting out of Clay’s car with another woman and walking down the Penn Track. A minute later, Scott pulled up in his car, grabbed the sex worker by the hair, pulled her into the passenger seat and drove off, the feds allege.
Enraged, he vented on a recorded call, “I’m ’bout to violate that b—h…. I’m about to do her something crazy…. I’m not respecting this shit…. I’m about to kill this bitch!”
Clay and Simmons argued the next morning and that led to Scott and Simmons deciding to rub out the competition, the feds say.
Simmons and Scott huddled outside a laundromat on Sheffield Ave. near Linden Blvd., then Simmons headed to a parking lot near Stanley and Pennsylvania Aves., where he shot Clay at least five times, according to the feds.
The prostitute went back to working for Scott after that, the feds allege.
Forney, of Kissimmee, Fla., committed his horrific acts, including the rape of a teenage girl, from 2014 through 2018, though he featured in online videos describing his pimp lifestyle as recently as 2022, the feds allege.
He lured one victim from Wisconsin to New York with the promise of legitimate work in 2016, then raped her, threatened her and forced her into prostitution, beating her if she didn’t make him enough money, the feds allege.
One time, he used a hotel shower to drown out her screams as he assaulted her, according to a Wednesday court filing by prosecutors.
He also would routinely beat two other sex workers if they didn’t follow his strict rules and broke one woman’s front tooth with a punch to the face, the feds allege.
In a YouTube video from 2012, Forney can be seen complaining about “hos that just like to sleep around, just want a bag of weed and some liquor.”
