Former school bus assistant gets a decade of probation for lewd conduct with a child

POCATELLO – A man formerly employed by Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25 has been sentenced after pleading guilty to sexually touching an 8-year-old girl.

Craig Colton Anderson, 31, was formerly a school bus assistant. He previously pleaded guilty to one count of lewd conduct with a minor and was sentenced Thursday.

Judge Javier Gabiola suspended a 10-year prison sentence in favor of sentencing Anderson to 10 years of probation, due to the results of a psychosexual evaluation that said he was a low risk to reoffend. However, this sentence came with a warning from the judge.

“You’re going to have to do a perfect probation. I hope you hear me loud and clear, because if there’s a violation, my decision as to what to do with you, to impose your sentence, is probably going to happen,” Gabiola said.

Anderson was initially arrested in May after a caller reported him to the Pocatello Police, saying she saw him put his hands down the pants of an 8-year-old victim. Anderson changed his plea to guilty on Feb. 24, as part of a plea agreement, where one of his two counts of lewd conduct with a minor under 16 was dropped.

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Anderson’s 10-year probation sentence includes seven fixed years and three indeterminate years. The no-contact order with the victim was extended to the end of his sentence.

The judge didn’t mince words about the crime Anderson admitted to.

“What you did was abhorrent. There’s no question about that,” Gabiola said.

Gabiola also spoke to the decision he had to make as a judge when weighing the protection of society, the impact on the victim and punishing Anderson for his actions while offering a path to rehabilitation.

“The issue I have to address is whether or not you would do this again,” Gabiola said.

A psychosexual evaluation, which was ordered after he changed his plea, found that Anderson is unlikely to commit these actions again. His defense attorney, Tony Budge, referenced this evaluation, saying that Anderson’s background supported this finding and that incarcerating him would almost double his chances of recidivism.

“We can’t go back and change what happened, but we can do what we should to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We give society, including Mr. Anderson and anyone out there, the best chance that this doesn’t repeat,” Budge said.

Bannock County Deputy Prosecutor JaNiece Price affirmed the plea agreement the state and the defense agreed to was appropriate.

Price referenced the psychosexual evaluation, saying, “that he would be an individual that would be able to comply with any requirements related to sex offender treatment, that he has a support system, and that there is a potential for employment.”

In their victim impact statements, the mother and father of the victims both talked about how Anderson’s actions impacted them. The mother said her daughter began to pull and chew on her hair, and they had to cut it off to prevent serious medical issues.

The family also had to save money to move away from the house where the crime was committed, due to how the memory of it was affecting them.

“Going into my daughter’s room used to be a place of joy. Waking her up in the morning, playing with her, and helping her take care of her fish. After this traumatizing act, I could never enter that room without a holographic flashback, tears running down my face, my heart pounding with the thought of being a failure as a mother,” the mother said.

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