ST. LOUIS • A Clayton man who tried to pay for sex with an underage girl was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in federal prison.

Last June, Louis Edward Cooke, 29, responded to an ad on the classified ad website Backpage.com offering two "young and irresistable" sisters, then exchanged emails with an undercover officer who told Cooke that one girl was 15 and one was 13. Cooke chose the older girl, adding that he would choose the younger if there was a special discount being offered, court documents show.

Neither girl actually existed.

Cooke showed up at a house in St. Louis County that was wired for audio and video by the FBI and Kirkwood police and was arrested after he asked to see the girls.

He was convicted by a jury in November on two counts of the attempted sex trafficking of a minor.

At his sentencing hearing Thursday morning, Cooke continued to maintain his innocence and said he had no interest in sex with children. He had claimed at trial that he went to the house to "jump a (car) battery" belonging to the undercover officer pretending to be the girls' father-in-law.

He also apologized to his family and said, "I am a good guy but I was lost and I made poor choices."

Cooke lived in Clayton at the time of the sting but may have moved in with a girlfriend elsewhere, court records show.