Lawyer for defendant in sex-trade case won’t pursue complaint of rights violation by Newport police

The lawyer for a Santa Ana man accused of running a lucrative pimping and human trafficking operation said Wednesday that he will drop allegations that Newport Beach police violated his client’s rights when they physically forced him to unlock his cellphone for a search.

After a months-long investigation into what prosecutors allege was a sprawling business in the sex trade, Newport Beach detectives served a search warrant on Ronald Spurlock in July, according to court documents.

The warrant included the phone’s contents, but Spurlock’s defense contended in a court filing that police went beyond their scope of power by forcing Spurlock’s thumb onto the phone’s fingerprint reader to unlock the device after he repeatedly refused to provide the access code.

Spurlock’s former attorney, Richard Barnwell, had asked a judge to bar evidence on the phone from being used in an upcoming trial in which Spurlock will face 19 felony charges, including four pimping and two human trafficking counts.

Prosecutors dismissed Barnwell’s argument, saying they were authorized to bypass the phone’s security and would have done so eventually even without Spurlock’s fingerprint.

“This is like arguing that, instead of taking a homeowner’s key to enter a house to conduct a search authorized by warrant, police are required to break the door down,” prosecutors wrote in a March filing.

Since then, Spurlock has retained a new attorney, Daryl Anthony, who said he won’t pursue Barnwell’s motion.

Anthony said he will focus on the most serious charges, that Spurlock held two women against their will and forced them into prostitution.

“Basically, I think the defense is going to be he’s not a human trafficker,” said Anthony, who contended that the women willfully participated.

Prosecutors present a different view of Spurlock in court documents.

They allege that he victimized at least nine women since 2012 by recruiting them into the sex trade or profiting from their work.

Documents describe allegations that Spurlock beat, intimidated, demeaned and threatened to kill women to keep them under his control.

Spurlock has pleaded not guilty to all the charges brought by the Orange County district attorney’s office. He is being held in Orange County Jail with bail set at $3.5 million, but Anthony has asked a judge to review that amount.

That hearing is scheduled for June 2.