(CNN) A former youth care worker has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for sexually abusing teenage boys at a migrant shelter in Arizona, the Justice Department said.

Levian Pacheco, 25, of Phoenix was convicted last year on seven counts of abusive sexual contact with a ward and three counts of sexual abuse of a ward.

The abuse occurred between August 2016 and July 2017 at Southwest Key's Casa Kokopelli facility in Mesa, court records show. It was part of the US government's network of privately run facilities intended to care for unaccompanied minors, according to court documents.

Pacheco began working there in May 2016.

The seven boys he was convicted of abusing, some on multiple occasions, were between 15 and 17, according to court documents. They were being held in detention pending possible deportation, and Pacheco, a youth care worker, supervised the minors, the Justice Department said.

Read More