Man gets 15 years for prostitution ring

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MIAMI, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A Miami Beach man has been sentenced to 15 years in a Florida prison for using physical violence on a woman he forced into prostitution.

Robert Burton, 34, appeared in court Tuesday, The Miami Herald reported. He had been convicted of domestic battery, profiting from prostitution and kidnapping.

Burton was the first person tracked by the Miami/Dade Human Trafficking Unit to be convicted, State Attorney Katherine Rundle said.

Rundle said Burton recruited women he forced into prostitution and then used violence to keep them in line. Some of his victims were teenage runaways.

"It's very much like domestic violence. It's control. It's terror. It's beating," she said. "It's affection -- with torture."

Investigators said Burton also fathered children with many of the women. He was arrested after he kidnapped his 7-year-old son from the boy's mother and was pulled over with the boy and two women in the car.

The boy told police the women were "my daddy's hoes," investigators said.

Burton's mother, Darlene, 55, faces a charge of kidnapping.