A 29-year-old Delaware man pleaded guilty to human trafficking of a 17-year-old girl Monday in Howard County Circuit Court. He was arrested in February after evading a Maryland State Police and FBI investigation near a Jessup hotel.Judge Richard S. Bernhardt sentenced Nathaniel Lee Thompson, of Wilmington, Del., to nine years in prison, five years probation after his release and to register as a Tier II sex offender for 25 years.According to Howard County State's Attorney's Office spokesman Wayne Kirwan, Delaware resident Janice Lee Figueroa, 19, was Thompson's accomplice in the crime. Figueroa, who pleaded guilty in May to receiving earnings of prostitution, was arrested in a vehicle in the parking lot of a restaurant nearby the hotel. She was sentenced to five years in prison.During Monday's hearing, Kirwan said, Assistant State's Attorney Colleen McGuinn stated that detectives were searching suspected prostitution ads online over the winter when they found an underage Delaware girl. Detectives used the instant messaging on her ad, which connected them to Figueroa and Thompson, who were involved in another human trafficking case in November 2015.After setting up a meeting with the girl on Feb. 8 at the Red Roof Inn in Jessup, an undercover Maryland State Police officer and FBI agent met her inside a hotel room, where she told them she was used as a prostitute in Maryland and Virginia. Kirwan said that the girl told officers she arrived at the hotel in a black Cadillac parked at Frank's Diner next door.Howard police then searched the vehicle and found Figueroa hiding in the backseat. Thompson had already gone inside the diner, Kirwan said, escaping through the back door. The vehicle, owned by Thompson's uncle, was seized by police who found Thompson's driver's license and wallet inside the center console.