OAKLAND — A federal judge here sentenced a man to 14 years in prison for trafficking three girls who’d run away from home, fitting a pattern of sexual exploitation that prosecutors say continued even after he was arrested.

Tobias Scolley, 27, pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of a child, admitting in a plea agreement to trafficking kids aged 13, 15, and 17, according to court records. After meeting the girls in Los Angeles, Scolley brought two of them to the Bay Area, where he put them in areas known for street prostitution in Vallejo and Oakland. He also trafficked a woman around the same time, according to a prosecution sentencing memo.

“(The girls) were all vulnerable and alone, and so deeply susceptible to the negative influence of a malign adult. Scollay exploited that vulnerability when he pulled them into his operation, placed them on the street and sexually abused them,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Evan Mateer wrote in court filings. He later added that Scollay, “exposed these girls to mortal danger and lifelong trauma for his own selfish profit. And Scollay was not satisfied with selling the bodies of his victims; he physically violated a 13-year-old and 15-year-old himself.”

The crimes occurred from June to December 2023. After his arrest on an assault charge in 2023, Scollay continued to call one of the girls and even convinced her to show her naked body on a video chat that was he knew was monitored by prison guards, according to prosecutors.

All three girls were trafficked by other people during the same time frame, according to an agent with Homeland Security Investigations, who said authorities identified multiple other “trafficking groups” during the investigation of Scollay.

Scollay’s lawyer, Steven Kalar, said in court filings the 13-year-old and-15-year-old “lied to him about their age and assured him they were adults,” and that the 17-year-old girl was with Scollay for a grand total of about an hour. He wrote that mitigating factors in Scollay’s history include his abhorrent upbringing, where his mother had him placed under involuntary mental health holds “as a form of child care,” and him being ultimately pawned off onto the foster care and juvenile justice systems.

“This lead to being a permanently homeless adult: at 27 years old he has never had a home. This long history of terrible abuse and neglect lead to predictable and profound mental health issues,” Kalar wrote in a defense sentencing memo.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sentenced Scollay on Oct. 8.