Fallen star is busted
Cops lure shock jock to HQ with gun ruse
by Barbara Ross, NY Daily News
Hip-hop shock jock Star was lured to Police Headquarters and then busted yesterday for his sick on-air rant about molesting the 4-year-old daughter of a rival.
Charged with endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated harassment, a smirking and defiant Star declared, "You’re looking at the new Lenny Bruce."
He made the dubious comparison to the late comedian – whose use of obscenities led to repeated arrests – as cops walked him handcuffed out of the 1st Precinct stationhouse to take him to Manhattan Criminal Court.
Star, 42, whose real name is Troi Torain, was canned Wednesday after making shockingly ugly, racist and lewd comments over several days on Power 105.1 (WWPR-FM).
In the running diatribe, the FM foulmouth said he planned to perform deviant sexual acts on the daughter of radio rival Rashawn Casey, who’s known as DJ Envy on WQHT-Hot 97.
Star even offered listeners $500 to tell him where the girl goes to school. He also said he had a gun and suggested he might use it.
He has since apologized. But that didn’t stop authorities from slapping Star, who reportedly got paid more than $4 million a year, with charges that could put him in jail for up to two years.
Cops used a ruse involving Star’s 9-mm. Glock to collar him, a police source said.
"We told him to come in and surrender the gun, but we knew we were going to arrest him," the source said. "Telling him ‘Come in and surrender your gun’ just sounds better than ‘Come in and get arrested.’ "
When the smug Star sashayed into Police Headquarters, he was met by hate-crime unit detectives and taken to the 1st Precinct for processing. Star’s high-powered attorney, Benjamin Brafman, insisted his client was contrite and had "never intended to violate the law."
Brafman said Star’s rant grew out of a dispute between "competing radio stations that has apparently spiraled out of control."
Brafman also said his client had only responded in a "moment of frustration" to "merciless taunts," threats and insults from Hot 97 deejays.
Lawyer Ken Thompson, who represents Envy’s wife, Gia Casey, blasted Brafman’s analysis as "simply ridiculous."
"This has nothing to do with rivalry. What he did was day after day make comments about an innocent little child while his bosses did nothing," said Thompson, a former federal prosecutor who handled the Abner Louima police torture case.
But Star didn’t appear worried at his arraignment early this morning, swaggering into court with his hands cuffed behind him, grinning and winking.
He was formally charged with child endangerment as well as criminal possession of a weapon and failure to report a change of address on his gun permit, which allows him to use the weapon only for target practice.
He was released on $2,000 cash bail pending a hearing May 30. It wasn’t immediately clear if the harassment charge was dropped or whether it would be brought up again in the next proceeding. Starting Monday, Star’s spot on Power 105.1 will be taken over by two jocks with no history of shooting from the lip.
Big Tigger, who co-hosts BET’s top-rated "106 & Park" video countdown as well as the nationally syndicated show "Lives in the Den with Big Tigger," will replace Star, sources said. A deejay named Egypt, who hosts another show on the station, will contribute entertainment reports.
At The Fairmont, a luxury high-rise on E. 75th St. where Star has an apartment, several of his neighbors had no idea who he was. But a 23-year-old woman who had heard reports of his comments was disgusted. "I listened to him once, but never again," she said