Sex offender returns to prison

CODY (WNE) — Kenneth Crawford, 24, was sentenced to two to four years in prison, with credit for 415 days served, after accepting a plea agreement on June 12.

Crawford was found guilty of sexual exploitation of children in June of 2023. An arrest warrant was issued for Crawford in April 2024, after he failed to attend mandatory probation meetings.

He was first apprehended on Sept. 22, 2022, after a Cody High School student reported to the school psychiatrist that she was suicidal after allegedly being sexually assaulted by Crawford earlier that morning, according to an affidavit prepared by Cody Police Detective Scott Burlingame.

Burlingame questioned Crawford at the Park County Law Enforcement Center on September 26, 2022, and seized Crawford’s cellphone after he admitted to having recorded a sexual encounter with the CHS student, the affidavit said.

On June 21, 2023, Crawford was charged with sexual exploitation of children after personnel from the Cody Police Department uncovered child pornography on his cellphone.

After being released, Crawford was mandated to attend monthly meetings with a probation officer; however, he stopped attending in March 2024. He was arrested soon after in Casper on May 25, after a citizen reported his location as a fugitive.

When he was arrested in Casper, the Casper Police Department found that he had a pistol in his waistband. This ultimately resulted in Crawford’s being sentenced to one year in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Scott W Skavdahl on Dec. 3, 2024.

Following his release from his federal charges, Crawford was arrested in Cody on outstanding warrants from his case in Park County.

This story was published on June 17, 2025.