Pay no attention to the snarling surveillance tapes on which admitted pimp Vincent George Jr. calls his women “bitches,” and “cheap ho’s” and threatens to knock their teeth out.
“He’s a teddy bear!” a blond, blue-eyed, self-proclaimed “happy hooker” insisted to a Manhattan judge yesterday, testifying on behalf of George, whom she described as her sweetheart, her drug counselor and the “grill man” at backyard barbecues.
“We all celebrated birthdays and anniversaries and Valentine’s Day,” Desiree Ellis (pictured) testified.
“We were happy,” she remembered of her Allentown, Pa.-based hooker “family,” which included George and three “wife-in-laws” she said joined her in commuting to the city to turn $300 tricks in pricey hotels.
“We always used to fight,” Ellis said. “We are women. We are emotional. We have PMS. It was up, it was down, but the majority of the time, it was up.”
Prosecutors say George and his father, Vincent George, Sr., also an admitted pimp, made millions trafficking women into the city, and used threats and coercion to keep them emotionally and physically enslaved.
Not so, insisted Ellis, the third member of their stable to take the stand and describe luxe employee perks: homes, cars and paid maternity leaves.
“What was your house like?” Ellis was asked by David Epstein, Vincent Jr.’s lawyer.
“It was,” she sighed, “big. I had five bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, a fireplace. It was fully furnished.”
“You sat in this courtroom and heard [George, Jr.] ranting and raving on the phone [on recordings] repeatedly, didn’t you?” Ellis was asked by Vincent Sr.’s lawyer, Howard Greenberg.
“Yes,” Ellis said. “It didn’t affect me at all. It goes in one ear and out the other. He would literally cuddle me afterward.
“One time, he bought me a bus ticket, and I sat there for hours” at the station, she testified, describing one tearful breakup.
When she had a change of heart, and asked to come back to the “family,” Junior did not beat or berate her, she said.
“When I came back home, we kissed, we made up, we had a love session,” Ellis enthused, winkingly.
“A what?” asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ruth Pickholz.
“A love session?” Ellis repeated, turning to the judge.
“Sexual relations?” asked lawyer Epstein.
“Yes!” said Ellis.
Both sides have rested in the bizarre nonjury trial, with closing arguments scheduled for a week from today.