On hook for evil

Woman pimped by cop at 13 gets OK to sue city

A 13-YEAR-OLD runaway allegedly forced into prostitution by a detective could have been spared the nightmare if NYPD brass had properly disciplined him for a series of complaints — including allegations he’d had sex with hookers, a judge ruled.

Brooklyn Federal Judge Nina Gershon said the woman — now in her 20s and identified only as “H.H.” — sufficiently showed a potential jury could reasonably buy the argument that police brass should’ve known former Detective Wayne Taylor was a problem before his 2008 conviction.

“A reasonable jury could find that, had Taylor been adequately investigated and disciplined, he would not have felt empowered to force H.H. into prostitution,” Gershon said Monday, letting the case against the city go forward.

Taylor was convicted of attempted kidnapping, but Gershon noted “it is undisputed that Taylor kidnapped H.H. and forced her into prostitution.”

Taylor, a 14-year member of the department, racked up 25 complaints in his nine years with the Narcotics Division, the judge said. Complaints generally had to do with misusing police authority, sexual relations with prostitutes and other criminal activity.

Taylor (photo) got cleared on three complaints, but the remainder were either unsubstantiated — meaning they couldn’t be proven or disproven — or pending at the time of his termination.

“Though many of the allegations against Taylor were never proven, investigators never found them to be false either,” Gershon said.

The city shouldn’t be on the hook for what happened to the victim, its lawyers argued.

Queens prosecutors said Taylor and a woman claiming to be his wife, Zelika (Mommy Z) Brown, brought the girl to parties in January 2008 and forced her into sex acts with men. The girl, once a ballet dancer, got snared when Brown’s relative invited her to “dance” for money. Court papers said the relative “sold” the girl to Brown for $500. Brown, Taylor and others held her against her will. H.H. remembered Taylor saying 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.” After days of beatings and forced sex, H.H. said she was “sold” to another pimp, prostituted again and then transferred to another, who released her. When Taylor was first busted in 2008, he told the Daily News he was “100% innocent of all the charges.” But in a 2015 jailhouse affidavit, Taylor said that working undercover at the Narcotics Division, he was trained how to blend in with prostitutes, pimps and johns.

Taylor said various police units occasionally looked at him “but little or nothing came of these investigations.” This all led to him “being trained in how to function as a criminal, empowered to believe I could get away with unlawful activities.”

Officials said Taylor, 45, completed his full sentence and supervised release in July 2016.

H.H. sued Taylor, but he never responded to the 2011 lawsuit.

Robert Tolchin, the woman’s lawyer, praised the decision to allow the lawsuit to go forward.

“The city can’t just stick its head in the sand like an ostrich,” he said.

The Law Department is reviewing the judge’s decision.

“The circumstances in this case were tragic, but the issue is whether the city is legally responsible for the illegal activities the former officer conducted outside the scope of his official duties,” a Law Department spokesman said.