A 22-year-old Hutchinson area man charged with electronic solicitation of a child and attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child waived his right to a preliminary hearing Wednesday and entered a “no contest” plea to the electronic solicitation charge, while the state dropped the attempted indecent liberties count.

Craig Austin Smith is now guilty of being in contact with what he thought was a 15-year-old girl, but in fact he was actually speaking with Hutchinson Police Detective Scott Carlton and Smith apparently showed up at a vacant Hutchinson apartment and was placed under arrest.

It started on Facebook, but then went to text messaging. Smith apparently sent some sexually explicit text messages of what he wanted to do with the young girl. He apparently indicated he wanted to meet and showed up at a vacant north side apartment where he was placed under arrest.

While the sentencing range for the solicitation count is between 55 to 247 months in prison, both sides will recommend a durational departure sentence of 30-months when sentencing takes place on March 1.

Judge Joe McCarville also revoked his community corrections in a previous burglary case and that sentence of 16-months was ordered to be served. That burglary conviction goes back to January of 2010.

That means if Judge Joe McCarville goes along with the departure agreement between the state and the defense, he would serve 30-months for the electronic solicitation conviction which would run consecutive to the 16-months in the burglary case, for a total of 46-months.