A Houston man was sentenced to 220 months in prison today for sex trafficking of a minor, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson of the Southern District of Texas.

Deangelo Tate, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of sex trafficking of children on Dec. 16, 2016. Today, U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller of the Southern District of Texas in Houston sentenced Tate and also ordered him to serve 10 years of supervised release and to pay $20,000 in restitution.

According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, between Jan. 13, 2015, and March 16, 2015, Tate posted classified advertisements on backpage.com promoting the prostitution of a 17-year-old minor female. Tate admitted that he also rented hotel rooms in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Houston to serve as the location for commercial sex acts between the minor female and male customers. Tate transported the minor female to the hotels, collected all of the money from the completed sex acts and became physically violent with the minor female if she did not follow Tate’s orders, he admitted. Tate was aware that the victim was a minor and stated in a conversation recorded by law enforcement that the girl had no credibility because of her age.

The FBI investigated this case with assistance from the Houston Police Department and the Corpus Christi Police Department. Trial Attorney Lauren Britsch of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri L. Zack of the Southern District of Texas prosecuted the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.