New York Daily News

5 years for pimp cop

- Andrew Keshner

AN EX-COP, who moonlighte­d as a pimp, will spend more than five years behind bars for peddling a 16-year-old girl’s flesh.

Eduardo Cornejo, was still working for the NYPD when he started running a prostituti­on ring of at least 10 women — including a girl Brooklyn federal prosecutor­s say was turning tricks for him when she was 16.

Cornejo, 35, said he didn’t know the teen was underage, but pleaded guilty last September to conspiring to engage in sex traffickin­g of a child.

On Wednesday, Cornejo’s attorney, Michael Padden, said he took exception to the word “pimp” to describe his client. He said the enterprise was “more a collaborat­ive effort,” and that Cornejo was pulled in as his marriage crumbled.

When Judge Brian Cogan hit Cornejo with the sentence, he said the girl was “the real victim. She is going to suffer for him having assisted her.”

Cornejo was booted from the NYPD in January 2016 for marijuana use after 11 years on the force.

“I understand the seriousnes­s of my crime, and I don’t take it lightly at all,” Cornejo told the judge.

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