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A former South Texas College professor on Tuesday was ordered to pay nearly $60,000 in restitution for filming himself sexually abusing two children, including his own.
U.S. District Judge Randy Crane ordered the restitution — $29,017.84 for one victim and $30,381 for the other — for Reid Etheridge, who is serving life in prison for abusing the two children who were under the age of 7.
Etheridge was sentenced in July of 2022 and sentenced to life for the abuse that occurred in 2020 when the children were 4 and 6 years old.
At the time, the court ordered $12,000 in restitution to one victim and $10,000 to the other.
However, in August 2023, a federal appellate court that upheld his life sentence vacated the restitution after determining federal prosecutors fell short in their burden of providing enough evidence to the court to estimate the victims’ losses.
“The facts of this case are just so horrible. This is somebody who groomed somebody else to give up their child so he could have sexual relations with another child besides his own,” Crane said at sentencing.
The other child belonged to Etheridge’s co-defendant, Alicia Cronkhite, who is serving 15 years in prison.
Cronkhite is projected to be released from prison in 2033.
Etheridge gained access to her child when she and her husband were in his statistics class at STC.
After they became friends, Cronkhite left her husband to be with Etheridge.
