![\"File](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6eb23e0b-gavelnew.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPLANO, Texas – A man who traveled to North Texas under the guise of molesting a child will serve a lengthy prison sentence.<\/p>\n
What we know:<\/p>\n
51-year-old Steven Dale Criddle pleaded guilty to attempted coercion and enticement of a minor. He was sentenced to 15 years and 10 months in prison.<\/p>\n
The sentence was announced by Eastern District of Texas U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs.<\/p>\n
Criddle, a former juvenile probation officer, drove from Bryan, Texas to Wylie with the intent of sexually molesting an 11-year-old girl. He had contacted a person he thought was the girl’s mother over the dark web to set up the attempted molestation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
File image of a wooden gavel. (FOX Local)<\/p>\n
He was apprehended at the location by law enforcement and admitted he traveled to molest the girl. Child pornography was also discovered on his phone.<\/p>\n
The case is part of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative launched by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.<\/p>\n
The Source: Information in this story comes from a Department of Justice press release.<\/p>\n
Wylie<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Texas<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLANO, Texas – A man who traveled to North Texas under the guise of molesting a child will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[960,1046,223,160,162,161,216,393,1292],"class_list":["post-364842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-collin-county","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-news","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-tx","tag-us","tag-wylie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}