One man dragged the woman by the ankles across the floor. A second man bent to help, lifting her by the hands. Her head lolled back and forth, her long hair brushing the floor.

The men walked a distance in the apartment building’s vestibule, before lowering her to the floor again. The first man left. The second man called paramedics, then he left, too. It was 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday. The woman did not live out the morning.

The incident was recorded on surveillance video in 2015, and led to the arrests of both men, one a drug dealer, the other a well-respected television producer, Marc Henry Johnson.

This should be a personal and professional peak year for Mr. Johnson, 53, whose latest project, the HBO series “The Deuce,” is set to premier in September. The series, depicting the sex industry in seedy Times Square in the 1970s, was his brainchild, hashed out over long visits with the players from that time and hand-delivered to David Simon, the acclaimed creator of “The Wire” and an executive producer of the new series.