A federal judge sentenced one of New York's most notorious pimps to 50 years in prison for human trafficking and ordering a rival's murder, but the open-air sex market he ran on a Brooklyn street keeps operating, night after night, under the watch of a city that prefers "outreach" to enforcement.
Omari "Prince" Scott, 45, drew the half-century sentence on July 29 after a Brooklyn federal jury convicted him in June 2025 of trafficking a woman identified only as "Henny" and ordering the killing of Cleveland Clay, a rival pimp who had tried to lure one of Scott's victims away. U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto presided over the case. Scott had already pleaded guilty to trafficking a second woman, identified as "Star," and to promoting prostitution.
The conviction and sentence closed one chapter. But a New York Post investigation found that the four-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn, known to pimps, victims, and police alike as "the Penn Track" or "the Blade", remains an active open-air sex trafficking corridor. Tens of women still work the industrial strip at night, selling sex for as little as $85 while pimps sit in parked cars up the block, watching.
Trial evidence painted a detailed picture of how Scott controlled the women who earned money for him. Judge Matsumoto's summary of the evidence showed Scott used the Life360 location-sharing app to monitor Henny's movements around the clock. He dictated when she could leave the street, when she could come in from the cold, when she could change her shoes, and when she could spend any money at all.
Despite bringing in thousands of dollars, Henny depended on Scott for her child's diapers and clothes and for rides back to the shelter where she lived. Scott demanded a $1,000 nightly quota, a figure current workers on the Penn Track described as typical.
Amanda Vizcarrondo-Ortiz, 35, testified at Scott's federal trial about how the Penn Track operates. She traveled from Massachusetts to the strip in late 2022, intending to work independently. That lasted until another woman maced her on the sidewalk, on a pimp's orders, for walking where she wasn't supposed to.
Vizcarrondo-Ortiz told the court what happened next:
"She maced me because her pimp told her to, because I was walking on the sidewalk and not in the middle of the street."
She eventually agreed to work for Scott. At trial, she described the financial arrangement in blunt terms:
"I just make the money and he collects it all. You can't be with a pimp... and say, 'Oh, I'm to keep this.'"
Vizcarrondo-Ortiz also testified to the sheer scale of pimp presence on the Penn Track, telling jurors that in New York, "they stand in a group of 30 or 40 of them." She described working the street in virtually no clothing as a form of protection, a signal to other pimps that she was already claimed.
Henny attempted to escape Scott's control twice. The first time, Scott found her, grabbed her by the hair, dragged her through the street, and threw her into his car. She stayed.
The second attempt proved fatal, not for Henny, but for the rival pimp she tried to leave Scott for. Henny texted Scott that the following Sunday would be her last day working for him. Scott's response, read into the trial record, left no room for interpretation:
"Oh, that's the day of your funeral. You not leaving and that aint no lie."
When Henny tried to "choose" Clay as her new pimp, Scott escalated. A recorded phone call played in court captured Scott saying he was "about to violate that b***h" and "about to kill this b***h." He then recruited Michael "Victory" Simmons, a fellow trafficker, handed him a wiped-down gun, and sent him after Clay.
On May 1, 2023, Simmons changed into black clothing, tracked Clay to a White Castle parking lot, and shot him five times at close range. Clay died hours later. Simmons testified at Scott's trial that the killing happened because Henny had "decided to choose" Clay. Simmons has pleaded guilty in a separate case and awaits sentencing.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch issued a statement after the July 29 sentencing:
"Omari Scott was a predator of the worst kind, using violence and financial control to force victims into this work and even orchestrating the murder of a rival for encroaching on his business."
Scott is behind bars. Three pimps total have been taken off the street, though only Scott has been publicly named. And yet the Post's visit to the Penn Track found the same machinery grinding forward, the quotas, the surveillance, the financial control, the coercion dressed up as partnership.
One woman working the strip described how pimps frame the arrangement:
"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."
Another described the quota system that Scott formalized and that persists without him:
"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."
The same woman explained what the pimps actually do while the women work. They sit in cars up the block. Not to protect anyone, to monitor output.
"[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."
She added that if a customer turns violent, a pimp may or may not respond. But if money is at stake, he shows up fast.
A third worker described the handoff:
"He takes it right out your hand. You don't even put it in your pocket first. If you do, that's a problem."
She noted the asymmetry plainly: "He says it's for 'us', but somehow, he always fresh and you still wearing the same thing."
A fourth woman laid out why walking away is not as simple as it sounds:
"Leaving sounds easy until you think about it. You got no money, he got it all. You got no phone, it's in his name. Where you gonna go?"
She described pimps running three or four women simultaneously and using competition between them as a control mechanism: "He'll put us against each other. 'She made her money, why you can't?' Keeps us competing instead of looking at him."
A fifth woman captured the constant threat environment on the strip itself, not just from pimps, but from customers, other workers, police, and men who simply sit and watch:
"You gotta keep your eyes on everything. The date, the other girls, the cops, the guys just sitting there watching. You can't relax for one second."
She described police enforcement as inconsistent: "One week they leave us alone, next week it's every night, lights on us, run our names, move along. Then they gone again and it's back to business."
The NYPD's approach to the Penn Track leans heavily on outreach rather than enforcement against buyers. An NYPD spokesperson told the Post that the department's Human Trafficking Squad has made contact with between 170 and 200 women each year since 2023. The squad has conducted four outreach operations along the Penn Track this year, aimed at identifying potential minor and adult trafficking victims and connecting them with services.
Patrol cars passed through the strip during the Post's visit. But the emphasis remains on identifying victims, not on arresting the johns whose demand sustains the market, or the pimps who profit from it.
Google Maps frequently highlights the Penn Track corridor in red, indicating traffic congestion. The congestion comes from slow-moving vehicles cruising the four-block stretch, customers shopping for women.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani stated in a 2022 candidate questionnaire that he favored decriminalizing sex work. His office now says his position has changed, or at least, that city policy has not.
A statement from Mamdani's office to the Post read: "As the Mayor has made clear, he does not support the legalization of sex work, and there has been no change in city policy on sex work since he has taken office." The statement added that the mayor's Office of Community Safety met with the Brooklyn District Attorney's staff to "discuss approaches that will deliver durable solutions" for the Penn Track location.
"Durable solutions" is a phrase that does a lot of work and commits to very little. Three pimps have been removed from the Penn Track. Tens of women remain. The quota is still $1,000 a night. The pimps still sit in their cars up the block. And the city's answer, so far, is another meeting.
One of the women the Post spoke with put her situation in terms that don't fit neatly into anyone's policy framework: "This ain't my whole life. This what I do to get through this part of my life."
She deserves a city government that treats what happens on that street as a crime to stop, not a social condition to manage with outreach pamphlets and interagency meetings.
