BROWN COUNTY — A prostitution case including a 45-year-old Sherburn man was sent back to Brown County District Court by the Minnesota Court of Appeals Monday.

The court upheld convictions of Jerrad C. Juhl but reversed the sentences and remanded (sent back) the case to district court for re-sentencing for the most serious offense, according to court documents.

A jury found Juhl guilty of five felonies. He was convicted of prostitution, soliciting a child to engage in sexual conduct, soliciting a child or believed to be a child through electronic communication to engage in sexual conduct and distributing via electronic communication material that relates/describes sexual conduct to a child.

All convictions were stays of imposition, meaning the charges would be reduced to misdemeanors if he completed probation. Another prostitution charge was dismissed.

For the first charge, Juhl was sentenced to 120 days in the Brown County Jail. He was placed on 10 years supervised probation, monitored by the Minnesota Department of Corrections, Field Services. In addition, he was ordered to register as a predatory offender, complete a psychosexual evaluation and follow all recommendations.

The second conviction carried five years supervised probation and the third, fourth and fifth convictions three years.

Charges stemmed from a Dec. 5, 2016, juvenile sex trafficking sting in New Ulm in which Juhl and three other men were arrested. The operation was done by New Ulm Police, the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office and Mankato Department of Public Safety.

In September, an appellate judge panel heard the case at the Blue Earth County Justice Center in Mankato after Juhl appealed the convictions and sentences.

Mankato defense attorney Jacob M. Birkholz argued that the district court erred by denying Juhl the opportunity to present the entrapment defense to a jury without obtaining a waiver of his right to a jury trial, which he said was grounds to nullify the convictions, according to court documents.

Judges ruled that the district court’s error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Birkholz argued that he produced sufficient evidence to support the entrapment defense because the state purposefully used a Backpage.com advertisement to lure unsuspecting people to commit a crime.

In addition, Birkholz argued that the district court erred in sentencing Juhl consecutively on all five convictions because they came from the same behavioral incident.

The state argued that the district court’s consecutive sentencing is authorized because the legislature intended consecutive sentences whenever minors are involved.

Birkholz made other sentence arguments but judges did not address them because his sentences were reversed and remanded to district court.

Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com.