Kalispell man caught in online sting pleads not guilty to child sex trafficking

A Kalispell man has pleaded not guilty to offering to pay who he thought was a Missoula 16-year-old for a weekend together.

Ernest Crawford, 52, pleaded not guilty Monday to one count of child sex trafficking and one count of child prostitution before Judge Jason Marks in Missoula County District Court on Monday morning.

According to charging documents, law enforcement agents in both Missoula and Kalispell were on a site known for online child exploitation, maintaining accounts pretending to be 12-year-old girls. Crawford messaged both of these law enforcement accounts asking if they knew any girls who were 16 and 17 for him to date.

“The 16 and 17 year olds would be okay. Have to wait a few years for the others, sorry,” Crawford messaged to the Missoula law enforcement account, according to documents.

Crawford discussed the Missoula account with the Kalispell account.

“I’m starting to think she is a cop trying to entrap older guys,” Crawford said. “I asked her to find a girl 16 or older and she is offering younger, 13 and 14.”

“Do cops do that?” the cop replied. “I didn’t think there’s cops on here.”

The Missoula account gave Crawford the information of another Missoula account purporting to belong to a 16-year-old girl from Missoula.

Crawford began communicating with this account, flirting and planning to meet up. He eventually agreed to pay the supposed teenager $400 to spend a weekend with her at his home in Kalispell.

Crawford was arrested on May 1 in Missoula when he knocked on the door of the address the account had given him. According to documents, Crawford said he’d had little luck using dating apps after the death of his wife, partly because they often removed his accounts when they found he was a registered sex offender.

Crawford has a prior conviction in Utah, where he was convicted for communicating sexually with an undercover officer pretending to be a 14-year-old girl online, documents state.

According to the court filings for the new charges, Crawford admitted he’d agreed to meet the 16-year-old for a weekend for $400 and likely would have had sex with her.

Though the age of consent in Montana is 16, anyone under 18 is considered a child for the purposes of charging child sex trafficking or prostitution with a child. These laws also apply to anyone who attempts to solicit sex from someone they believe is under 18, even if the person is actually an undercover law enforcement officer.

Crawford’s next appearance is scheduled for Aug. 17 at 10 a.m. before Judge Shane Vannatta for an omnibus hearing.