{"id":59418,"date":"2026-03-26T16:49:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-woman-pleads-guilty-to-child-sex-crimes\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T18:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:43:35","slug":"farmington-woman-pleads-guilty-to-child-sex-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-woman-pleads-guilty-to-child-sex-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington woman pleads guilty to child sex crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=cf60cbb2-b701-5077-be61-9a64658fc080&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" alt=\"Crystal Lopez, 36, of Farmington, was arrested March 21, 2025, for alleged sexual relations with a 13-year-old boy.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Crystal Lopez, 36, of Farmington, was arrested March 21, 2025, for alleged sexual relations with a 13-year-old boy.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A Farmington woman pleaded guilty Thursday to child sex crimes involving a 13-year-old boy and was sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Crystal Lopez, 37, pleaded guilty to four counts of fourth-degree sexual penetration and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.<\/p>\n<p>Eleventh Judicial District Judge Curtis Gurley sentenced Lopez to 7\u00bd years in the Department of Corrections but suspended all but five years. He also ordered one year of parole followed by 2\u00bd years of supervised probation.<\/p>\n<p>During a 13-minute change-of-plea hearing before Gurley, defense attorney Evan Ferguson asked the court to impose probation and a conditional discharge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe defendant has a low risk of recidivism,\u201d Ferguson said, adding that Lopez is a mother of five children who \u201clost custody \u2026 lost her home and previous job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ferguson also said there was \u201cno evidence of deviant sexual arousal or grooming patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, the arrest affidavit states that the boy went to Lopez\u2019s home in the 2700 block of Cliffside Drive to \u201chang out\u201d with her five children and that she provided him with marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>The boy told authorities that he and Lopez \u201cwould smoke weed in bed together\u201d and had \u201csex on several occasions\u201d from December 2024 to January 2025, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n<p>Farmington police also found \u201cnaked pictures\u201d of Lopez on the 13-year-old boy\u2019s phone, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n<p>Lopez claimed the boy \u201cwould force himself on her.\u201d During the hearing, Assistant District Attorney Terry Walker said Lopez was \u201cshifting blame to the victim\u201d and that although she \u201ceventually admitted,\u201d she never \u201cfully acknowledged her role\u201d in the abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Gurley repeatedly asked Lopez whether she understood the charges because she would not say what she did wrong. Instead, Ferguson questioned her about the allegations, and she responded, \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before sentencing, Lopez told the judge she was \u201ctrying to get help.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just the trauma I\u2019ve been going through, and it won\u2019t happen again,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the prison sentence, Gurley ordered Lopez to register immediately as a sex offender. She was taken into custody following the hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>to 5 years in prison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6301,6302,6300],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-59418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines-tri-cities","category-newsletter-tri-cities","category-tri-cities","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59418"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93414,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59418\/revisions\/93414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59418"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=59418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}