Former Minneapolis police officer Bradley Schnickel pleaded guilty Thursday for sending nude photographs of himself to two teen girls in Hennepin County and will serve a year in the Hennepin County workhouse.

Schnickel, 32, is also facing multiple charges in Anoka County for allegedly using social media to try to lure girls into sexual encounters. Police said he has at least 20 victims, including having sex with several of the girls.

The two felony counts that Schnickel pleaded guilty to carried a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Schnickel was fired from the police department in February.

Schnickel and his attorney Fred Bruno declined to comment after the hearing. He will be sentenced Aug. 27.

A spokesman for county attorney Mike Freeman said the plea agreement was standard and there was justice for each of the two victims. This will also set the stage for the cases pending in Anoka County, the spokesman said.

One of the charges filed recently involves a Coon Rapids girl and dates to 2010 — the oldest of the alleged online relationships involving Schnickel. According to court documents, the girl, then 15, was roller blading in Coon Rapids in the summer of 2010 when she noticed a parked car and a male driver trying to get her attention. The man told her she was "sexy" and that he was 23, worked as a bartender and that his name was Brady, the charges say.

Authorities say the girl began interacting online though Facebook, Myspace, a webcam site with Yahoo and Tiny Chat with a man she believed was "Brady Schmidt," the same name other alleged victims say Schnickel used.

The girl told authorities that during the summer of 2011, when she was 16, she and Schnickel engaged in multiple acts of sexual intercourse and oral sex at a park and at her home in Coon Rapids, when her parents were away.

Other charges allege that he met a few of the girls with whom he communicated and had intercourse with one of them, a 14-year-old.

All but two of the alleged victims live in Anoka County; the others are from Brooklyn Center.

Some of the girls allegedly contacted by Schnickel online were preadolescent, Anoka County prosecutors have said. He also used police equipment to locate some of his alleged victims.
Investigators have examined 9,000 printed Facebook pages of alleged victims, Anoka County authorities say.

Schnickel is married and has two young daughters.