Pimp known as ‘Ro Dinero’ is sentenced to over 20 years in state prison

Ronald Spurlock, a pimp who goes by the moniker “Ro Dinero,” was sentenced Friday to 20 years and eight months in state prison for human trafficking, pimping and pandering involving more than a half-dozen women working in the sex trade across Orange County.

A jury found Spurlock, 39, guilty in March of two felony counts of human trafficking, four felony counts of pimping, eight felony counts of pandering — a legal term for recruiting someone to work in prostitution — and one felony count of conspiring to dissuade a witness from testifying, according to Orange County Superior Court records.

Spurlock also pleaded guilty in February 2017 to one felony count of possession of a firearm by a felon, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Newport Beach police detectives arrested Spurlock on July 17, 2014, in his $3,500-a-month, two-bedroom luxury apartment in a high-rise near John Wayne Airport.

In the months before his arrest, Newport detectives had pegged Spurlock as a key player in a lengthy drug investigation. They eventually determined that he was at the center of what appeared to be a lucrative sex trafficking and pimping operation, authorities said.

Investigators said they noticed that multiple women were frequently in Spurlock’s company. They said they were able to identify some of them and match them to pictures found on a website known for prostitution advertisements. They said they watched while Spurlock and his 29-year-old girlfriend shuttled the women to and from appointments with prostitution clients.

One woman, who was in her 20s, told police that Spurlock knocked her down, savagely beat her and tried to strangle her when she declined to work at a strip club, according to a detective’s testimony.

The woman said Spurlock followed her to Las Vegas in March 2014 and forced her into his car, Newport Beach Det. Elijah Hayward testified.

Hayward said the woman described the car peeling out of a hotel parking lot toward the desert while Spurlock flailed at her head and arm as punishment for “ho’ing behind his back.”

Orange County prosecutors contended that Spurlock was not just a pimp but a trafficker who controlled his victims through abuse.

Spurlock’s attorney argued during his trial that the women could come and go as they pleased.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN