Charges dropped in Nye County sex sting case

A Pahrump man who faced charges for luring an underage girl for sex after an undercover investigation in 2017 has been honorably discharged from probation and had his case dismissed, according to the Nye County Clerk’s office in Tonopah.

Anthony James Craighead, 35, had a charge of conspiracy to contribute to the delinquency of a minor dropped in May after he did not get into trouble while serving a year of informal probation, the clerk’s office reported.

Craighead was arrested in April 2017 on suspicion of luring a child with a computer system or network for sexual conduct after Nye County Sheriff’s detectives, posing as a 15-year-old girl, claimed he sent a message on Facebook describing a “very specific sexual activity that he wanted to engage in with,” according to the Sheriff’s Office.

A few days later, a Sheriff’s Office employee posing as a decoy met Craighead at a prearranged location, where deputies arrested him.

Craighead was bound over in Justice Court on counts of using technology to lure a child and attempted statutory sexual seduction, but the District Attorney’s Office never formally charged him in District Court with those crimes, the clerk’s office said.

Instead, prosecutors charged him with attempted sexual seduction, a gross misdemeanor, but later changed it to conspiracy to contribute to the delinquency of a minor, also a gross misdemeanor, the office said.

A judge imposed a $500 fine on Craighead, plus $30 in court costs and had him serve the year of informal probation, which, if successfully completed, would see the conspiracy charge dismissed, the clerk said.

The charge was formally dismissed on May 11 with Craighead finishing probation honorably, the clerk reported.

Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on Twitter.