An Iowa businessman has been sentenced to 30 years behind bars after being convicted on charges related to furnishing teens with "a place to party" in exchange for sex.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge John A. Jarvey sentenced 71-year-old Hershel James Ratliff, the owner of Jimmy's All American Diner in Council Bluffs, to 360 months in prison on Thursday, according to a Monday press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ). Ratliff was convicted on six human trafficking counts and one count of distributing Xanax to a person under the age of 21 on July 23, 2021.
A police investigation into Ratliff's activities began in August 2019, when the Iowa Department of Human Services was tipped off "about information reported by a fourteen-year-old child that involved inappropriate sexual conversations and advances by Ratliff," according to the DOJ release. The investigation soon uncovered further high school-age victims who were targeted by Ratliff between 2012 and 2019.
"Ratliff provided drugs, alcohol, and a place to party for teenagers," the DOJ stated. "Ratliff groomed teenagers and after cultivating a trusting relationship with them, convinced them to engage in various sex acts with him and his friends for money, alcohol, or drugs."
The DOJ said that Ratliff used his diner and other rental properties to recruit and groom his victims. Four of the human trafficking charges he was convicted of involved children, while the other two involved adults.
A DOJ release issued at the time of Ratliff's conviction stated that he would "provide minor girls with alcohol, prescription Xanax, and marijuana both before and after they participated in sex acts at his residence" and that he "obtained sex acts for his friends from adult women by the use of force and coercion."
Ratliff's retro-themed diner, which billed itself as a source of "Grandma's Delicious Comfort Food," permanently closed earlier this year, having continued to operate after Ratliff's April 2020 arrest until a short time after his conviction.
Ratliff was also sentenced to 10 years of supervised release upon the completion of his prison sentence, although he would be 101 years old by then.
Terms of the supervised release include Ratliff registering as a sex offender, working full time, a prohibition on possessing computers or accessing the internet, and a command that he "must not associate with any prostitute."
The investigation into Ratliffe's crimes was conducted by the Council Bluffs Police Department, the FBI and the Southwest Iowa Narcotics Task Force. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Iowa.
Newsweek reached out to Ratliff's attorney for comment.
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