SAN DIEGO — A 21-year-old man accused of using teenaged girls to work as prostitutes pleaded guilty today to pimping and kidnapping.

Dante Lamont Dears faces four years and eight months in state prison when he is sentenced on April 8. Dears changed his plea to guilty on the second day of his preliminary hearing. Prosecutors had charged him with four counts of pimping.

“I’m satisfied that the community’s been protected,” Deputy District Attorney David Hendren said outside court.

Thursday’s hearing was to determine if there was enough evidence for the case to go to trial. Prosecutors added a kidnapping charge after a 17-year-old girl testified that Dears forced her into the trunk of his car and drove her around San Diego when she worked for him as a prostitute.

The girl told the court that she was 15 and living on the streets of San Diego when Dears persuaded her to work for him as a prostitute. She said he hit her and forced her in the trunk when she wanted to quit.

Dears was accused with two associates of setting up the teenage prostitution ring, called “Pimp’n Ho’s Daily.” Prosecutors said it had been operating for at least the past four years before he was arrested.

Darren Lee Halton, 20, and Marcel Crowel, 30, pleaded guilty Wednesday to attempted pimping in connection with the case. They will be sentenced April 1.