A 37-year-old man convicted by a Crawford County jury of human trafficking, ongoing criminal conduct and pandering was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison late Monday. According to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, the case is the first to garner a conviction and subsequent sentencing under a human trafficking law that took effect in 2006.

The jury convicted Leonard Ray Russell on Sept. 12 after a four-day trial in Denison. Some of the alleged offenses took place at Big Earl’s Key Club, located in the same community.

“This case helped us understand that human trafficking is a much bigger problem in Iowa than most of us realized,” Miller said in a prepared statement. “It can be especially perilous for young people and disadvantaged kids, and it can occur in small towns. The underground nature of human trafficking makes it hard to fight, but the trafficking law is a valuable new tool and we will use it.”

Two Nebraska girls testified at the September trial that they met Russell in Omaha in August 2007, shortly after they had ran away from a juvenile home in Fremont, Neb. Aided by a 19-year-old prostitute named Marcia “Jazzie” Ryan, Russell befriended the girls and provided them with illicit substances.

Prosecutors alleged Russell, who has used addresses in both Sioux City and Omaha, Neb., took the girls to Davenport and Rockford, Ill. and then to Denison over the course of several days. At the locations, Russell was convicted of forcing the girls to engage in prostitution and perform at strip clubs, including Big Earl’s Key Club in Denison.

The girls testified that they didn’t like what they were doing and that they felt ashamed, but that they also believed they had no where to go. According to court testimony, the girls were required to give all money they earned to Russell and Ryan in exchange for food, shelter, transportation and clothing.

After the girls had been with Russell and Ryan for eight days, one of the girls — a 15-year-old — was placed on a bus to Washington, D.C. The girl was told that she was being sent to Russell’s cousin so she could learn to solicit sex. The other girl remained in Denison at the strip club and with Russell and Ryan.

An anonymous tip led law enforcement to the girl who remained in Iowa. The other girl was recovered and protected by law enforcement in Washington, D.C.

At trial local police and Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation officers testified that they retraced the steps the girls took and located hotel receipts showing that Russell had rented rooms in the cities described by the girls. Investigators also found online postings that contained pictures of the girls and an offer to provide them as prostitutes.

The Iowa Code, Section 710, made human trafficking a felony if there is a victim under the age of 18. According to the Code, the crime is the participation in a venture to recruit, harbor, transport, supply provisions, or obtain a person for purposes ranging from forced labor to debt bondage to commercial sexual activity.

Russell was convicted on two counts of human trafficking, one count of ongoing criminal conduct and two counts of pandering, all classified as felonies. He was sentenced Monday by Crawford County District Court Judge Edward Jacobson of up to 25 years for the criminal conduct charge, and up to 10 years each on the human trafficking and pandering charges. The sentences are to be served concurrently.

Ryan, Russell’s alleged accomplice, was arrested in September in Omaha on an active warrant. She was earlier charged with the same counts Russell faced in Iowa, pleaded “not guilty,” and her case is pending.

While Russell’s case was the first to be successfully prosecuted under the additions to the 2006 Iowa Code, there was a high-profile federal case on human trafficking tried in Iowa during 2007. Staff from the Cedar Rapids Gazette created a 14-part special report on that case, which involved a Minnesota teen and an eastern Iowa prostitution ring.