NYPD recruit busted for trying to pick up prostitute during open-air sex market crackdown: sources

An NYPD recruit was busted on a prostitution-related rap as cops cracked down on an open-air sex market in Brooklyn early Thursday, authorities and law enforcement sources said. 

The police candidate, Diangelo Pena, 26, was arrested at 12:30 a.m. as police swept East New York streets during the operation, and was charged with patronizing prostitution, according to cops and sources.

He was released with a desk appearance ticket and is due in Brooklyn court on Feb. 14.

Pena was suspended without pay following his arrest, the department said. 

Video posted on YouTube over the summer showed scantily clad street walkers strutting around that neighborhood, hawking early-morning sex. 

At the time, retired NYPD detective and John Jay College professor Michael Alcazar, who worked in East New York’s 75th Precinct, said the scene reminded him of the rampant open-air prostitution in the lawless 1990s.

“In the 75, we would drive down areas where there were waves of them,” said Alcazar, who was on the job for three decades. “It’s sad because we cleaned it up. And now it’s back and with that, they’re also trafficking. You know, kids.”