(Des Moines, IA) — A Council Bluffs man has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison on a human trafficking conviction. Seventy-one-year-old Hershel Ratliff was found guilty last July. Council Bluffs police started investigating his actions in August 2019 after a report that was made to the Iowa Department of Human Services. A 14-year-old child had told a mandatory reporter about inappropriate sexual conversations with Ratliff, saying he had made advances. Investigators went on to identify several young adults who had been victimized while they were in high school between 2012 and 2019.
