A Massachusetts man who recruited troubled young women from Maine to pimp them in Boston last year has been found guilty of interstate prostitution after a trial this week in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Fritz Blanchard, 29, of the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, was found guilty by a federal jury Thursday after a four-day trial on a charge of aiding and abetting interstate transportation of women for prostitution.

Blanchard is the second pimp to be found guilty in the case. His childhood friend, Samuel Gravely, who moved to Maine years ago after finishing prison terms in Massachusetts for illegal gun and drug charges, pleaded guilty to an identical interstate prostitution charge on Nov. 20 rather than go to trial.

Gravely, 28, testified against Blanchard as the first witness in the trial Monday. He told jurors how Blanchard had been his criminal mentor after they reconnected in 2012, and told him that the illegal sex trade was “the new way” to make money in addition to selling drugs.

Gravely described to the jury how Blanchard encouraged him to advertise his girlfriend from Presque Isle on a website for prostitution, and accompanied Gravely and the girlfriend when they pimped her twice in Bangor in March 2013.

“He knew a new way to make money besides just selling drugs,” Gravely testified, recalling his conversations with Blanchard in 2012 and 2013. “He told me that prostitution was the new way, that there was money to be made in it.”

Blanchard and Gravely then brought the Presque Isle woman to Portland on March 27, 2013, where they recruited another young woman with dirty clothes and a black eye from the street, Gravely’s girlfriend testified.

After pimping the two women for one night in Portland through ads posted on backpage.com, the men picked up another juvenile girl from the street on March 28, after convincing her to join them for a road trip to Boston and possibly beyond, Gravely and his girlfriend testified.

In Boston, the men checked the women into a hotel on Huntington Avenue. Gravely’s girlfriend testified that Blanchard told her when they got to the Boston hotel not to tell the juvenile girl that they were prostitutes. But she said that Gravely, whom she knew by the nickname “Bigs,” told her to explain to the juvenile girl what was happening.

The Press Herald is not identifying the women or the juvenile because they are considered victims in the case and have not been charged with any crimes.

Gravely’s girlfriend testified that the juvenile girl was suffering from symptoms of opiate withdrawal on the drive to Boston and began crying when the men would not get her drugs.

The juvenile girl did not know she was expected to be a prostitute when she first got in the car with the men, then feigned illness and managed to slip away at the Boston hotel to call police, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Gravely is now scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Torresen on Sept. 23. Blanchard is scheduled for sentencing on Dec. 12.

Both Gravely and Blanchard face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.