Calling prosecutors’ case “imaginary,” a Butler lawyer Monday urged his client to fight allegations that he’d solicited a 13-year-old for sex over the Internet.

But the defendant, 47-year-old Dennis Lee Belles of Evans City, bucked Armand Cingolani’s advice and accepted a plea offer that eventually will put the defendant in prison for 3 to 6 years.

The case against Belles, which was prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office, alleged the defendant in February used the Internet to communicate with a woman who claimed to have a 13-year-old daughter.

Initially seeking “open family sex,” Belles allegedly asked the mother if he could have sex with her and her daughter. The woman, who really was an undercover agent, kept up the ruse that continued for several days, under the guise that she did not care if he had sex with her child.

On Feb. 8, Belles allegedly started chatting with a second agent, who impersonated the girl.

He sent her several sexually explicit messages, documents said, and eventually set up a tryst with the girl at the Cranberry Mall. When Belles drove there, agents were waiting to arrest him.

Belles’ jury trial was scheduled to begin Monday and last two days. The defense and prosecution already had picked 13 people to serve as the jury.

But instead, Belles pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him: unlawful contact with a minor, attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person less than 16 years old, criminal use of a communication facility, and attempted indecent assault. Additionally, he pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing two images of child pornography.

Cingolani, during court Monday questioned his client about his decision, saying, “I strongly advised you against any plea. Right?”

Cingolani, after court explained his theory that the prosecution’s case was ‘imaginary,’ this way: “Inchoate offenses are offenses that did not, in fact, occur. They reflect mental intentions, not necessarily capable of physical possibility ... There was no actual 13-year-old child.”

Calling the appellate process a “loser’s game,” Cingolani told his client in the courtroom, “we win here, or we lose here (in the county courts).” And, the attorney told his client that he was giving up on his trial rights.

But still, Cingolani said he couldn’t promise his client a particular outcome to going to trial. Had Belles been convicted of all the charges, he could have faced a maximum of 91 years in prison.

Instead, the deal calls for the defendant to face an undetermined amount of probation following his prison time. He also will be required to register his whereabouts with state police for the rest of his life whether or not he is later declared a sexually violent predator under the state’s Megan’s Law. Once the evaluation is complete, the defendant may accept or dispute the findings.

But Cingolani, in court, told Belles that the process by which defendants are evaluated is “even more imaginary than the charges you’ve been charged with.”

Cingolani told his client the process of evaluating him would have lifelong implications, yet it would be “arbitrary and capricious.”

The comment drew an objection from Deputy Attorney General Anthony Marmo.

Butler County Judge William Shaffer, who presided over the case, approved the objection and delayed sentencing for Belles until the defendant is evaluated by a member of the state’s Sexual Offender Assessment Board. That will take about three months.

Several members of Belles’ family attended the hearing, but did not speak.