Man who sold boy for sex gets 13 years

A man convicted of selling a teenage boy for sex in Atlanta was sentencedTuesday in federal court in Chicago to more than 13 years in prison.
A jury convicted Tommy Christopher Cox, 32, in November of enticing andtransporting an underage victim across state lines to engage in prostitution.
In October, Cox pleaded guilty to possessing more than 800 stolencredit-card numbers that he used to rent hotel rooms in Chicago at which hewould host parties and sell the boy for sex.
Cox’s attorney, Gal Pissetzky, asked the judge for a 5-year sentence,while prosecutors sought up to 15 1/2 years. Pissetzky said his client plansto appeal.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan also ordered Cox to pay $56,597 toan online travel site that absorbed the losses from the fraud scheme.
According to an affidavit filed by a U.S. Secret Service agent, thethen-17-year-old boy said Cox “would often get the partygoers drunk or highand then convince them to pay him to have sex with one of Cox’s maleprostitutes.”
Assistant U.S. Atty. Juliet Sorensen said Cox would sometimes split themoney with the boy or take it all to pay for food and rent. She said thatwitnesses testified during the trial that Cox had pimped other teenagers, buthe was charged only in connection with the one boy.
In court papers, Pissetzky indicated that Cox was sexually abused as achild by a relative.
At the hearing, Cox said he struggled with his sexuality and apologized forwhat he did. He said that he has earned his GED and was attending college.
He also claimed that the underage boy told him he was 19 and that he neverphysically abused him.
Cox was arrested after he used a stolen credit card to book a room in 2005at a hotel on the Near North Side. A search of the room turned up 384credit-card numbers and authorities turned up hundreds more numbers in Cox’se-mail account, officials said.
The credit cards had been fraudulently used to book rooms in the Chicagoarea 230 times between January 2005 and March 2006, authorities said.