A former Baltimore police officer pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to serving as a pimp for his 19-year-old wife and another young woman who lived with him.

Between February and May of last year, Lamin Manneh, 32, advertised the two women's services on the Internet and arranged for them to meet more than 300 customers for sex at hotel rooms and homes.

Manneh, who was assigned to the police's Eastern District, carried his service weapon as he chaperoned the women to the meetings and agreed to intervene if the clients became aggressive, according to the U.S. attorney's office. He would rent hotel rooms and an apartment to facilitate "in-calls" or ferry the women to locations chosen by their clients.

Manneh's attorney could not be reached for comment.

Manneh was arrested after being caught in a sting by Maryland State Police after an undercover trooper on a child-sex trafficking task force responded to one of his online ads. Police arranged to meet Manneh's wife at a hotel near BWI-Thurgood Marshall Airport, and inside she said she charged $100 for sex.

Manneh's wife was arrested on a prostitution charge filed in Anne Arundel County, but those charges were dropped in September, records show.

In a federal indictment filed against Manneh in August, prosecutors said his wife had entered into a "contract of slavery" with him and agreed to be subservient to him as her "master." Manneh kept all his wife's prostitution earnings, the U.S. attorney's office said, and a share of the other woman's.

Manneh could be sentenced to up to five years in prison at a hearing scheduled for May.

iduncan@baltimoresun.com

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