CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cleveland man who pimped out three teenage girls on the Internet was sentenced Monday to 14 years in federal prison.

Ronnie Pratt Jr., 23, was arrested at a hotel in Lakewood on Nov. 5 after an undercover FBI agent responded to a post on Backpage.com advertising the services of a "lovely college girl" with a "thing for older men," according to a criminal complaint.

From there, investigators found out that Pratt had sold other girls for sex online and would drive them to and from appointments.

He pleaded guilty in June to three counts of sex trafficking of children.

The former boxer said Monday that he was trying to help the girls. They were between the ages of 13 and 16, though Pratt did not know the youngest girl was that young when he met her.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Boyko asked Pratt "did you ever sit down and think, 'I'm a pimp'?" Pratt responded that he had not.

Pratt argued that this was a lapse in judgment -- albeit a large one -- in a mostly law-abiding life. Defense attorney William Norman his client had a "strong sense of what is right and what is wrong, and a strong sense of avoiding wrong."

And Pratt said that "all these years, you know, I walked a straight line, but now I'm here."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bridget Brennan went on to explain the explicit details of Pratt's actions, reminding the judge that, "at the heart of this case are three young girls."

She showed the judge and those in the viewing gallery edited versions of the explicit images of the victims that Pratt posted on Backpage.com. She also showed photos and a string of text messages Pratt sent that illustrated how he made large amounts of money by selling the underage girls.

When one person said one of the girls was too young to be a prostitute, he responded by saying "put that bread in my pocket and pay my rent so I ain't complaining lol."

One of the victims spoke to the judge Monday as to how Pratt's exploitation affected her life. She acknowledged that he helped her with some things, but also that "he just hurt us mentally."

Brennan also read from a poem written by another victim that described the dread and fear she lived with when working under Pratt.

"When I hear the word Ronnie, it feels like a hole in my heart and my breathing gets faster and faster," Brennan read from the victim's poem.

In a bizarre side note, Pratt said he was grateful he was arrested because he feels he likely would have been killed in May. That was when his cousin Dion Pratt was shot and killed on his porch on Somerset Avenue near East 105th Street in the city's Glenville neighborhood. Pratt said he frequently hung out with his cousin.

After Pratt was arrested, the FBI searched his phone. The search led to the arrest of Richard Purnell, a Parma man who regularly had sex with one of the girls that Pratt pimped.

A jury found Purnell guilty this month. U.S. District Judge John Adams will sentence Purnell on Dec. 13.

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