photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Cormick Gabriel Ferrell during a preliminary hearing on Feb. 24, 2023. Ferrell was ordered to stand trial on one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child between the ages of 14 and 16.

A Lawrence man was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison in a case where he was originally accused of trafficking children for sex in exchange for rent.

The man, Cormick Gabriel Ferrell, 44, was originally facing two counts of aggravated human trafficking in one case and one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child between the ages of 14 and 16 in another case, but both were resolved in July through a plea agreement in which he pleaded no contest to one count of aggravated sexual battery and two counts of aggravated endangerment of a child, all felonies, as the Journal-World reported.

On Tuesday, Judge Sally Pokorny sentenced Ferrell to 36 months in prison for the aggravated sexual battery count and six months in prison on each count of endangerment of a child, according to a news release from the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office. The sentences will run consecutively for a total of 48 months, or four years, in prison.

Ferrell had been released on bond shortly after entering his plea, and he was taken into custody after Pokorny read his sentence on Tuesday, according to the release.

Ferrell was alleged to have provided two children under the age of 14 to be used in forced labor, involuntary servitude or sexual gratification of another person between April 2014 and August 2017. The children were 7 and 6 years old when the crimes allegedly began. Then-Senior Assistant District Attorney Seth Brackman argued at a preliminary hearing in November 2021 that Ferrell allowed them to be assaulted in exchange for rent.

The aggravated indecent liberties charge is alleged to have occurred between August 2016 and May 2017, as the Journal-World reported. During a preliminary hearing in February of 2023, the woman, now 20, testified that as a teenager she had accompanied Ferrell on a job he had undertaken in his handyman business. She said that she had fallen asleep on a couch while he worked and woke up to him touching her inappropriately. She said she then jumped up and ran out of the residence.