Juan Carlos Soto told the court he was drunk when he raped the women.

McALLEN, Texas (AP) – The leader of a border sex-slave ring that held women against their will, raped them and forced them to work without pay was sentenced Friday to 23 years in federal prison.

Juan Carlos Soto, 26, told U.S. District Judge Randy Crane through a translator that he was sorry for the people he had harmed. He said he was drunk when he raped and enslaved four Central American women.

“I ask the people to give me an opportunity for my kids and for more my family,” Soto said, looking at the floor as he spoke.

Soto, of Nueva Italia, Mexico, could have faced life in prison but agreed to a plea deal. Six other men have pleaded guilty in the case; five were sentenced Thursday to punishments ranging from four months to 14 years.

The women, who were 19, 20, 22, and 40, had arranged to be held in “safe houses” until their smuggling debts were repaid. Instead, investigators said, they were held for about three months at houses around the Rio Grande Valley, forced to work as housekeepers by day and were raped and beaten at night as the men tried to get more money from their families.

Two of the women were stripped, gang-raped and dropped off near a roadway, where a family found them in February 2003. The two other women were rescued in March.

The judge shook his head as he read through the charges.

“He’s the worst that I’ve ever seen in this court,” Crane said. “It was worse than bad. It was almost like raping children. This gentleman took advantage … knew they were vulnerable, knew they couldn’t cry out.”

The victims have been relocated and are being treated as refugees under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.

Soto also must pay $11,532 in restitution and will be deported after his sentence.

The defendants pleaded guilty last summer to holding the women against their will in an Edinburg trailer park, about 220 miles south of San Antonio. One of the men, Luis Villa-Zavala, didn’t appear for his sentencing and is now considered a fugitive.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday said busting this ring and a forced-labor ring in American Samoa showed prosecutors were making inroads against human trafficking.

There have been 83 convictions or guilty pleas since the Justice Department launched the initiative in March 2001, a threefold increase over the preceding three years, officials said. Prosecutors have 142 open investigations, the most ever.