He called himself "Rico Pimping" and was well-known for wearing fedora hats, fabulously colorful suits and lots of jewelry while driving around Houston in his gold Jaguar.

On Friday, a judge sentenced Mark Anthony Inestroza to 35 years in prison after hearing that he used charm, then threats and finally violence to force women into prostitution.

Wearing an orange jail uniform, the 23-year-old was stoic as visiting Judge Frank Price sentenced him for the felony offense of compelling prostitution of a minor.

"He is a pimp. He prides himself on being a pimp," prosecutor Ann Johnson said after the punishment was handed down. "The court sent a very strong message to the community that no longer will we allow human trafficking."

Inestroza was convicted of threatening to use violence to force a 16-year-old to prostitute herself with more than a dozen men over three days. Police began investigating when the teen's mother called authorities after being shown online ads for the girl.

History of violence

Waving hundreds of paper copies of computer screenshots of other women from an escort website posted by "Rico Pimping," Johnson told the judge that investigators have no idea how many women Inestroza forced into prostitution before being arrested three years ago.

"These are all the women he sold," Johnson said, as she argued for a life sentence. "He is a sexual predator for profit."

Maverick Ray, Inestroza's attorney, had argued for the minimum punishment, 15 years in prison, saying the young man made some bad decisions after his father disappeared and his mother was deported to her native Honduras.

"I think drugs and depression led him down this bad path," he said.

Prosecutors Friday called two other women to testify that Inestroza has a history of using violence to get his way.

Wakes up crying

Early in the day, a woman he put on the street described how Inestroza changed from a sympathetic boyfriend to an abusive pimp.

"I still wake up in the night crying," the 23-year-old woman said. She and another woman testified that Inestroza brutally beat a third prostitute who fled to Bryan-College Station, severing the top half of her ear from her head and putting her in the hospital for a week.

"He went from charming, sweet and understanding to being mentally abusive to me and physically abusive to her," the 23-year-old woman testified. "Some days it was good; some days it wasn't so good."

She said Inestroza once handcuffed her to a pipe behind a toilet in a cheap motel room, but she was finally able to escape to the motel office.

"When they saw the handcuffs, they called the police," she said. "At first, I just told them he was my boyfriend."

After the sentence, the 23-year-old witness had tears in her eyes as she hugged two other former prostitutes who testified against Inestroza. The three women had been sitting in the front row of the courtroom gallery staring down the former pimp as he was led to a holding cell.