Carl Markley, a former licensed nurse practitioner and co-owner of Perfect Games and Inside Golf, pled guilty to 15 counts of sex trafficking and coercion over 19 years on Tuesday.

From 2004 to 2023, Markley, 45, of Ames, “lied to dozens of men” to perform sex acts on them and “observe the young men engage in sex acts” in the clinic he ran in Ankeny, according to a press release from the Southern District of Iowa U.S. Attorney’s Office. He paid the men with money, which Markley falsely told them was grants or other funding.

“Markley’s lies included telling the young men he needed to perform sex acts on them or observe them engaging in sex acts in order to obtain a medial or message cerficiations, complete classwork, conduct third-party research, and for product development,” the release stated.

Markley operated the Wellness Clinic in Ankeny, where he “fabricated consent forms and contracts requiring victims to participate in a certain number and type of sex acts,” according to the plea agreement.

During what Markley called his “research sessions,” he told his victims he was recording information or data and falsely claimed to send his data to research institutions. He also “sometimes used hidden cameras” to take images and videos of “young men or minor male male children naked.”

According to previous reporting by the Daily, the criminal complaint for Markley’s arrest in May 2023 stated police found “commercial pornographic videos consisting of doctor models conducting sexual acts with patient models in a clinical setting.”

He was originally arrested in April 2023 for sexual exploitation of a minor. According to the Ames Tribune, in the same month, then-Ames Community School District Superintendent Julious Lawson emailed parents telling them to ask their children if Markley had conducted their physicals.

Markley is facing a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum term of life imprisonment for each count of sex trafficking. He is set to be sentenced for 15 counts of sex trafficking on March 24.

The investigation was conducted by the Ames Police Department, FBI and the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigation.