US Man Sentenced to 472 Years in Prison for Leading Child Sex Trafficking Ring

Thirty-one-year-old Brock Franklin was given a 472-year prison sentence by a U.S. court on Friday.

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The record-setting sentence was handed down for child sex trafficking, following a guilty verdict from Colorado state earlier this year.

Franklin was identified as the leader of the trafficking ring, which used social media to recruit women and girls. The victims were reportedly drugged and sold online for sex.

“I can’t begin to even explain what he did to my life,” one of the victims told local media. “He deserves every single minute in those walls,” she said.

According to multiple reports, Franklin was found guilty on 30 counts – including human trafficking of a minor, human trafficking of an adult and soliciting of child prostitution.

Denver-based FOX News affiliate said the sentence was the longest, for human trafficking, in United States history.

“A 400-year sentence sends a strong message across the country that we’re not going to tolerate this kind of violence,” Janet Drake, a spokeswoman with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, told the television outlet.

The sex-trafficking ring had seven members, four of whom have already been sentenced.

Anti-slavery group Polaris said it received reports of more than 22,000 sex-trafficking cases in the United States over the last decade.

More than 40 million people are victims of human trafficking across the globe, according to the International Labour Organization.

An estimated 4 million of them are forced into sexual exploitation.