Kansas City, Mo. ? A man who has refused to reveal the whereabouts of his two children was ordered Friday to spend 10 years in prison on an unrelated gun charge, a stiff sentence prosecutors hope will convince him to talk.

Daniel Porter’s sentence would run consecutively with a potentially lengthy term imposed as a result of state kidnapping charges, for which the 42-year-old Independence man is to stand trial in November.

“Mr. Porter holds the keys to his jail cell,” said Jackson County Prosecutor Mike Sanders, expressing hope that the defendant would soon provide clues to his children’s location.

Attorneys on both sides of the case sparred over the sentencing category for Porter, but U.S. District Judge Ortrie Smith rejected defense requests for a lighter penalty for being a felon in possession of firearms. Porter pleaded guilty to the charge in January.

“There seems to be no point at which Mr. Porter is willing to stop inflicting injury and pain on Mrs. Porter,” the judge said. “It almost brings me to the point of tears to think of the pain that those kids are experiencing.”

Porter, 42, is charged by the state with two counts each of terroristic kidnapping and parental kidnapping, for which he faces up to 38 years in prison.

His children have been missing since last June, when he picked them up from his ex-wife Tina for a weekend visit. Since then, investigators have scoured the Kansas City suburbs of Independence and Sugar Creek looking for the children, and have searched in the area around Porter’s hometown of Trenton in northern Missouri, but they have come up with nothing.

Porter was given a chance to speak Friday but said nothing, to the disappointment of his former wife and her family, who hoped he might give some clue about the whereabouts of the children.

Tina Porter did not speak after the sentencing. She was questioned, along with three others beforehand, in arguments over sentencing guidelines.

“I want my children,” she interjected at one point. She quietly sobbed as the sentence was announced.

The woman’s sister, Tami Gochenour, said that while Porter “may have gotten what people thought is due,” she was hoping for more information from him on the children, Sam and Lindsey, who were ages 7 and 8 at the time of their disappearance.

The defense attorney, Laine Cardarella, refuted U.S. Atty. Paul Becker’s argument for a 10-year sentence, saying the kidnapping charges should not be considered.

“What you need to do here, judge, is punish him for what’s here in front of you,” she said.