Alison J. Ramsdell U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota
A McLaughlin, South Dakota man has been sentenced to more than 31 years in federal prison for aggravated sexual abuse of a child. U.S. District Judge Charles B. Kornmann handed down the sentence to Kurtis Charles Cross, age 67, on August 18, 2025.
Cross received a sentence of 31 years and eight months in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund.
Cross was indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2024 and pleaded guilty on June 3, 2025.
The incident occurred in late 2023 at a home in McLaughlin within the Standing Rock Reservation. On August 4, 2024, Cross was left alone with a three-year-old girl for about twenty minutes. When an adult household member returned home, she noticed something was wrong and found the child sitting in fear while Cross forced her to perform oral sex. The adult intervened and reported the matter to police.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted this case under the Major Crimes Act, which allows certain crimes committed in Indian country to be tried in federal court rather than state court.
"This case was also brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc," according to the press release.
The investigation involved multiple agencies including the FBI, Bureau of Indian Affairs – Office of Justice Services, and Corson County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Thunem prosecuted the case.
Following sentencing, Cross was remanded into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service.
