DETROIT (AP) — A Toledo, Ohio, man was sentenced to 8 years in prison for his role in a nationwide prostitution operation that authorities say forced children as young as 12 to have sex at truck stops, hotels and brothels.

Deric Willoughby, 40, pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy and interstate transportation of minors for prostitution, U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy said.

Co-defendants Brandy Shope and Jennifer Huskey pleaded guilty earlier to the same charges and were both sentenced to 6 years and 6 months in prison. A fourth defendant, Richard Lamar Gordon, was sentenced to 5 years for transportation of a minor for prostitution.

A grand jury in Detroit charged the defendants in December 2005 with forcing two Toledo girls, 14 and 15, into prostitution in May of that year. The girls were held for 10 days in Michigan, where they were taken to hotel rooms for prostitution. Willoughby assaulted the girls and forced them to engage in sex acts while Shope and Huskey collected money from patrons, Murphy said.

At one point, Willoughby, Shope and Huskey took the girls to a parking lot in Toledo where they met Gordon, who took them to a truck stop in Michigan and had sex with one of the girls while Shope forced the other girl to commit prostitution with other truckers, Murphy said.

Willoughby, Shope and Huskey were among 31 people linked to four child prostitution rings in Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in 2005.