A 41-year-old McAllen man and a 29-year-old Edinburg woman admitted their guilt Thursday morning in a disturbing case of sexual abuse against children.
The Homeland Security Investigations – Rio Grande Valley Child Exploitation Task Force arrested Reid Etheridge, a former South Texas College professor, and Alicia Cronkhite late last year after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC, alerted federal authorities about multiple email accounts containing child pornography.
Less than a year later, Etheridge pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of children and a count of coercion or enticement of a minor, while Cronkhite entered guilty pleas to charges of sexual exploitation of children and coercion or enticement of a female, court records show.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said in a news release that Etheridge and Cronkhite face a minimum of 15 years in prison, but can also be sentenced to up to life in prison.
Sentencing is scheduled for June 15, according to the release.
Federal agents first arrested Etheridge after the NCMEC alert, which reported approximately 323 videos and images depicting young children in sexually explicit conduct.
In his guilty plea, Etheridge admitted to filming himself sexually abusing two children between Jan. 1, 2020 and Oct. 1, 2020, and uploading videos and images of the abuse to the internet.
The news release said he also confessed after his arrest.
A review of his text messages discussing the sexual exploitation of a child and child pornography led agents to Cronkhite.
“According to the charges, Etheridge had encouraged Cronkhite to produce child pornography of another minor victim,” a previous news release stated. “Cronkhite then allegedly took photographs of herself abusing a minor victim and texted the photographs to Etheridge.”
The complaint says the child was in Cronkhite’s care, but doesn’t elaborate on the relationship between Cronkhite and the child.
Both of them have remained in custody since their arrests after a magistrate judge made several rulings that kept them in detention, including that the weight of the consequences if convicted — life in prison — are too serious for them to receive bond.
Court records indicate they reached plea deals with the government.
The case was brought forward as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative the Department of Justice launched in May 2006 to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, the news release said.
