Tayari Chanel Meadows, 20, Las Vegas, Nev., will serve no more than the 247 days she’s already been in jail for Class AA felony human trafficking.

Meadows could have been sentenced to life in prison without parole for prostituting a 14-year-old girl at a Minot motel last spring. Instead, Judge Todd Cresap agreed to sentence her to two years in prison, with all time suspended except for the 247 days she’s already served in the Ward County Jail. Meadows will be on supervised probation for three years and will be required to testify against her co-defendant, Kevin Jackson Fleming, who is facing charges in Nevada.

Meadows entered an Alford plea, meaning she disputes some of the facts in the case but acknowledges she would likely be found guilty at trial.

“It’s a question of the bird in the hand being worth more than what’s out there in the bush,” said her defense attorney, Robert Martin.

Martin said Meadows is very young and has a minimal criminal record, with only a misdemeanor prostitution charge on her record. She was also something of a victim herself, said Martin, and might have fallen under the state’s “safe harbor” law had she not taken photos of the minor and posted an ad on Backpage.com, a website commonly used to advertise prostitution.

Ward County State’s Attorney Roza Larson said Meadows was at the bottom of the operation.

According to court records, Meadows was arrested on April 7. Police had received information from a mother in the Las Vegas area that her 14-year-old runaway daughter was being advertised as an escort on the website Backpage.com The girl was being advertised on the website as a 19-year-old in the Minot area. Police used the website to set up a “date” for $200 per hour with the teenager at a Minot hotel. When they went to the hotel, they made contact with the girl, who was in a room with Meadows.

According to court documents, the girl allegedly told police that she was walking home from school in Las Vegas when Meadows and a man named Kevin Fleming drove up alongside her and persuaded her to get in the car. She said Meadows persuaded her to go to North Dakota. Meadows and Fleming allegedly arranged “dates” for the girl in both Williston and Minot. The girl told police that the pair knew she was only 14 and told her to lie in her advertisement or she would not get “dates.”

Judge Todd Cresap said the recommended plea deal was reasonable based on the facts of the case. He warned Meadows that she must follow successfully complete probation or she could be resentenced and could receive up to life in prison. If she gets in trouble again, the outcome might be very different, said Cresap.