A former San Antonio lawyer has been sentenced to 80 years in prison for forcing clients to have sex with him in exchange for his legal services.

Mark Henry Benavides (Bexar County Sheriff's Office)

A jury in Wilson County, where the trial was moved because of the case's notoriety in Bexar County, handed down the sentence after about six hours of deliberations Friday.

Benavides, 48, was convicted Tuesday of six counts of continuous trafficking of persons. His attorneys have already filed an appeal in the case.

The former lawyer still faces trial on several other charges, court records show: two counts of sexual assault of a child, one count of sexual assault and an additional count of continuous trafficking of persons.

Leaving the courtroom after Friday's sentencing, Benavides mouthed "I love you" at his wife, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Prosecutors argued during the trial that Benavides targeted prostitutes and drug addicts as victims because their stories would be less credible, WOAI-TV reported. He coerced them into having sex with him, saying that he would keep them out of jail, and recorded the encounters.

Authorities confiscated nearly 250 DVDs of Benavides engaging in sex acts with the victims, and some of the videos were shown during the trial. In one case, a graphic video of rough sex led a juror to faint.

Benavides testified that the encounters were consensual, KENS-TV reported, but prosecutors argued that the women's cries of pain during the sex acts were real.

"This is human trafficking," prosecutor Meredith Chacon told the Express-News. "He transported, coerced, threatened and made them feel they had no choice. This jury understood that."

Benavides' attorneys did not comment on the sentencing. Their client, who was running to be a district judge in Bexar County at the time of his arrest, resigned from the state bar in 2016.

Benavides will be eligible for parole after serving 30 years of his sentence.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.