MIAMI - A former staff member at the Florida Keys Children's Shelter has been sentenced to nearly 32 years in federal prison for selling two underage girls for sex.
A U.S. Attorney's Office news release says 29-year-old Ricky Jermaine Atkins was sentenced Wednesday. A jury convicted him in October of multiple sex trafficking charges.
Prosecutors say Atkins took two girls, ages 15 and 16, from the Tavernier facility to a Cutler Bay hotel in August 2014. He left them with 24-year-old Sandra Simon, who prosecutors say supervised the girls' prostitution.
Simon pleaded guilty in November to one count of sex trafficking of a minor and was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
