East Wenatchee Man Gets Plea Deal Dismissing Child Sex Crimes

A 25-year-old East Wenatchee man faces a 13-month prison term in a plea deal related felony assault of a 12-year-old child. 

Kenneth Crisp entered a plea Tuesday in Douglas County Superior Court to two counts of second-degree assault. 

He'd been charged a week earlier with 13 sex crimes on the child, but prosecutors let him use a provision allowed in Washington to plead guilty to a substitute charge. 

Under the in re Barr arrangement, an accused person is allowed to plead guilty to a substitute charge that is a legal fiction in order to receive the benefit of a plea bargain. 

The 13 original charges against Crisp, including four counts of Rape of a Child, were dropped. He admitted in his plea deal there was significant risk of conviction for the original charges. 

Prosecutors are recommending a 13-month sentence followed by 18 months (about 1 and a half years) of community custody supervision. Crisp is scheduled to be sentenced on December 27th. 

Crisp was arrested in September of last year after learning of evidence he'd committed sexual crimes with the child in 2020. 

Douglas County deputies were contacted by the Idaho State Patrol about Crisp. 

The child and her mother had moved to Idaho, and child came forward two years later about being sexually abused there by an adult man. 

A detective with the Idaho State Patrol said the child had disclosed two sexual encounters with a man identified as Kenneth Crisp 

In his plea deal, Crisp admitted to assaulting the child in March of 2020.