Andrè Taylor made national headlines when he was hired as Seattle, Washington’s new $150,000-a-year “street czar” and community liaison.
Taylor, 52, was a Las Vegas pimp who recruited girls as young as 16 for wealthy clients. He got one girl pregnant and faced seven prostitution-related charges in 2000.
Cheryl Davis, 20 at the time, testified in open court that she miscarried his baby in jail while he lived the high life off of the money she earned.
She said she moved into his $300,000 home with two other prostitutes just after she turned 18.
Taylor was also accused of transporting a minor across state lines. He was sentenced to serve 5-and-a-half years in prison, but only served one year.
The prostitution business was lucrative for Taylor, who was born to a prostitute mom and pimp dad. He wore hand-tailored Versace suits, a $90k Rolex and expensive alligator shoes, according to DailyMail.com.
Taylor, pictured as a young man with his pimp father, Mel Taylor, once said he learned the pimp trade from his father after he was “born from the womb of a prostitute from the seed of a pimp.”
In the 1999 documentary “American Pimp”, Taylor revealed that he believed “prostitution cuts down on rape” and that the “best pimps are the best men, men of character and substance.”
But Taylor, who was previously known by his street name “Gorgeous Dre”, has since turned his life around.
He founded a nonprofit foundation after his brother, Che, was fatally shot. And he offers $500 an hour life coaching sessions.
Taylor is married to Athena, his wife of 22 years. He has a son who graduated from Yale University and a daughter who graduated from UCLA.
On July 27, Taylor signed a $150,000-a-year deal with Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office to work as a community liaison.
As part of his $12,000-a-month deal, Taylor will provide recommendations to the city on de-escalation strategies between police and local residents, community engagement, and alternatives to policing in the aftermath of multiple killings of Black men and women by police.
His new title of “street czar” was his idea, according to the Seattle Times.
He told the news outlet he was the best man for the job because “not too many people can go talk to gangbangers in their territory, and then go talk to the government in their territory.”
Taylor said he has a “particular genius in a particular area” and can talk to “gang members, pimps and prostitutes” who “won’t sit down with anybody else,” reported KOMO News.
“Black people as a whole have not been in a place to be compensated for their genius or their work for a very, very long time,” he said.
Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office did not immediately return DailyMail.com’s request for comment but she told the Seattle Times the partnership would “help de-escalate the ongoing situation” between police and criminals by allowing the city to tap into Taylor’s “lived experience with the criminal legal system”.
