A man who ran a ring of prostitutes that included underage girls was sentenced Friday to 15 years in federal prison.
Timothy Wayne Lee pleaded guilty in July to two counts of sex trafficking of a child stemming from cases in Colorado and California. According to his plea deal, Lee coerced girls as young as 16 to work for him as prostitutes and provided them with drugs.
Both girls were runaways when Lee met them.
“This is certainly far from a victimless crime,” U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn told Lee during Friday’s sentencing hearing.
“These are reprehensible — frankly, despicable — crimes,” he added later.
Lee, 45, has had a string of prostitution-related arrests, according to the plea agreement. In 2002, he was fined for soliciting prostitution in Denver. In 2003, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail in Sacramento, Calif., on a prostitution charge. Last year, he was sentenced to three years in prison in Tennessee in a prostitution case. And his federal plea bargain will result in the dismissal of state prostitution charges in New Mexico.
Lee was indicted in federal court in Colorado in October 2010. The indictment accused him of trafficking at least four underage girls over a four- year period from 2005 to 2009. Lee also took pictures of the girls that amounted to child pornography, according to the indictment.
As part of his plea agreement, Lee admitted to advertising the girls on the Internet and charging $200 an hour. All of the money went back to Lee.
Authorities said Lee also used at least five adult women as prostitutes.
In court Friday, Lee said he was sorry.
“I just wanted to apologize to the victims, any and all victims, to their families and to my family too,” he said. “I want to apologize for my actions.”
In addition to prison time, Blackburn sentenced Lee to 10 years of supervision after his release and ordered him to undergo a sex-offender evaluation.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
