LOUISVILLE, KY — A Louisville woman who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking charges was sentenced Thursday to 180 months in federal prison followed by 20 years of supervised release.

Cleoretta Allen, 41, formerly operated a business called "Playhouse of Domination" out of an apartment she rented on Chickasaw Avenue in Louisville. The business offered dominatrix-style BDSM services — bondage, discipline, sadism-submission, masochism — from a small staff of women, according to her plea agreement. Several of Allen's top employees quit in 2017, the business lost clients and Allen lost money. Allen began selling commercial sex acts with two of her employees, who she was also involved with sexually, according to the September agreement.

In a sentencing memo, prosecutors said Allen planned to have two teams of employees. One would be a team offering dominatrix services and the second would be called "Team B" and offer sex for sale. The two women "continued to engage in commercial sex for [Allen's] profit because they feared the consequences of not doing so, as both women had experienced or witnessed physical assaults at the hands of [Allen], some so series that they required medical treatment at a hospital," they argued.

Allen posted ads for sex with her victims on the internet, and she once drove with two women from Kentucky to Georgia for acts of prostitution, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Kentucky. "Those who commit crimes of this nature lose sight of the humanity of their victims; that they are someone's daughter, a person with dignity and value, someone's little girl," U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman said in a statement. "As evidenced by a sentence of a decade and a half in federal prison with no parole, this foul conduct will not be tolerated in the Western District of Kentucky."



The charges that Allen pleaded guilty to carry a minimum prison term of 15 years in prison. She must also register as a sex offender upon her release.