Woman convicted of sexual abuse of a child

A woman accused of letting a convicted felon sexually assault a 12-year-old girl in exchange for methamphetamine was convicted Wednesday evening of continuous sexual abuse of a child.

The woman, whose first name is Leticia, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. She elected to have state District Judge Scott Wisch sentence her. He will begin the punishment phase of the trial on Thursday, prosecutors said.

The Star-Telegram is using only the defendant’s first name to avoid identifying the girl because the newspaper generally does not identify sexual assault victims.

The man who sexually assaulted the girl is Thomas Crick, who told the girl he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. He assaulted her for almost four months beginning in September 2012.

Crick sent the child home with free methamphetamine for Leticia in exchange for her blindness to the child’s situation, prosecutors said.

Crick, now 31, of Fort Worth, was sentenced in September to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to trafficking of a child/engaging in sexual conduct.

Prosecutors blamed Leticia for delivering the girl into Crick’s hands.

“Thomas Crick is a creep of the highest degree,” Wes Ball, Leticia’s attorney, told the jury in a closing statement Wednesday. “He’s a convicted felon, a meth user and he molested the girl. That’s not in dispute.”

What was in dispute was whether or not the state had proved its case against Leticia, Ball said. Where is the proof that Leticia’s need for drugs was so bad that she continued to “pimp out” the child in her care? Ball asked.

Crick was on parole for aggravated robbery and unlawful possession of a weapon. He disabled his ankle monitor prior to his arrest, according to authorities. Crick had been out of prison for less than a year before he was charged with this new offense, said prosecutor Eric Nickols.

Leticia led relatives to believe that Crick was the girl’s babysitter, which was a lie, Nickols said. The girl often cared for her younger brothers and could take care of herself, according to witness testimony.

“Her innocence was the price for Leticia to get high,” Nickols said.

White Settlement police officers testified Wednesday that they seized drug residue and two glass pipes typically used by people who smoke methamphetamine after a search of the residence where Crick lived with a roommate. Police testified that they also found condoms, an empty morning-after pill package and a blue nightgown small enough for a child.

Crick’s roommate declined to be interviewed by police because he “feared Thomas [Crick] and his connection to the Aryan Brotherhood,” according to testimony from Detective Steven Person.

On Tuesday, the girl testified that she has four brothers and lived with three, but none of them was ever asked to go to Crick’s house. Leticia slept most of the day and would retreat to a closet to smoke methamphetamine, the girl said.

She testified that she never told anyone she was having sex or smoking meth with Crick because she was afraid she would get in trouble and also because she came to have feelings for Crick during her abuse.

The girl testified that she does not have those feelings for Crick anymore.

After the girl spent a first night with Crick, Leticia asked if he had touched her or done anything inappropriate, and the girl told the jury that she said no.

“She never asked again,” the girl testified.

This story was originally published April 8, 2015 at 8:37 PM with the headline "Woman convicted of sexual abuse of a child."