With his wife sitting in the Pennsylvania courtroom Monday morning, 54-year-old Peter Moffatt thanked the police detective who stopped him from having sex with children.

The St. Catharines man was sentenced in Harrisburg, Penn., to a minimum of 36 months in prison and a maximum of 80 months for 19 counts of sexually related crimes.

In March, Moffatt pleaded guilty to seven counts of criminal solicitation for attempting to have sexual contact with children and to 11 counts of sexual abuse of children that stemmed from child porn found on Moffatt's laptop.

He also pleaded guilty to criminal use of a communications facility for using the Internet while making plans to lure children.

"It was a fair sentence in keeping with our sentencing guidelines," said Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico.

Moffatt started communicating in an online chatroom in June 2007 with what he thought was a mother of two daughters aged 10 to 13 whom she was willing to turn over to him for sex.

They discussed what sex acts the children could do. He eventually booked a hotel room in Harrisburg, where he was to meet the girls for sex.

But it turned out the woman he was communicating with online was a police detective. When Moffatt arrived in Harrisburg, he was met by police.

Marsico said Moffatt briefly addressed the court during his sentencing hearing Monday.

"He apologized to his family," Marsico said. "And then this was interesting, he thanked the police detective who caught him because she stopped him before he could hurt anybody."

Moffatt is eligible for parole in 36 months. If he is denied parole, he could serve his full 80-month sentence.