Sunday, May 27, 2012

Self-described pimping expert loses swagger when Brooklyn judge sentences him for robbery

Gets 21 years to life in prison





Anthony McCord said he was "a failure as a pimp" at his sentencing on Thursday.
A self-described pimping expert who was convicted of robbery sheepishly told a Brooklyn judge that his hustle really didn’t have any muscle.

"I was a failure as a pimp," the once cocksure Anthony McCord admitted Thursday before Justice Wayne Ozzi sentenced him to 21 years to life.

"I really wasn't very good at it. A lot of it was exaggerated."

McCord, 30, claimed his former bravado was an act and blamed his actions on a troubled childhood, growing up with a father in prison for murder and a mother in a vegetative state after jumping out of a burning building.

Under different circumstances, he said, "I always thought I'll end up in an Ivy League school or something."

McCord was convicted in December of burglarizing a Brooklyn hotel room and robbing two hookers he accused of stealing from him.

Justice Wayne Ozzi wasn't swayed by the sob story Thursday, noting it "fits a pattern of saying what you need to say in the circumstances that suit you."

He ruled that McCord was eligible for a life sentence because of his two previous felony convictions.

"You referred to it as The Game, you treated it as a game," Ozzi said of McCord’s description of pimping. "I'd like to say, at this time, the game is over."

At trial, McCord said the “code of conduct between pimps and hos” led to the March 2010 incident. He even offered to be an expert witness on pimping, boasting of participating in national conventions on peddling flesh.

He said he got into "the industry" in 2000. His apartment featured hotel room-like beds and a dancing pole.

A jury convicted him of breaking into a room where two women were waiting for johns, slapping one of them and leaving with laptops and cell phones. He was acquitted of raping one of the hookers after they returned together to his pad.

"The defendant, through his own admissions, has been preying on and living off the exploitation of women," said prosecutor Kevin O'Donnell.

McCord acted as his own lawyer, but his legal advisor David Walensky spoke on his behalf Thursday.

He noted that McCord's mother had recently died, leaving him a large inheritance, which means he'll have no incentive to resort to crime when he's released. He asked for the minimum punishment of 10 years in prison.

"It's puffery," the lawyer said of McCord claims of expertise. "He wants you to think he's the world's greatest pimp. He wants to be an expert in pimpology."

The judge pounded the pimp for testifying that hookers gave him all the cash they earned with their only reward being the privilege of having sex with him.

"You treated them the same way you treated cars you were selling at some point in your life," Ozzi told him. "They're not entitled to be treated in that manner, irregradless of what they do to make money."






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