ST. LOUIS – A 62-year-old St. Louis man will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars after a jury convicted him Wednesday of 22 sex offenses against children.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department began its investigation on Jan. 3, 2023, after receiving a report of a sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl.
Police said the girl had recently moved into the Dutchtown home of Craig Wilbert. The girl’s boyfriend and his mother also lived there.
After the girl moved, police said Wilbert began making sexual advances toward her and sending her pornography.
Wilbert offered to pay the girl for sex, but she refused. Wilbert threatened to throw her out, as well as her boyfriend and his mother, if she did not have sex with him.
According to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, investigators eventually learned that Wilbert had sexually abused the girl’s boyfriend for several years, going back to when he was 12. Wilbert convinced the boyfriend to engage in sex acts with him in exchange for money to take the bus to school. He also agreed to buy the boyfriend a cell phone and pay the phone bill.
Prosecutors charged Wilbert with one count of sexual trafficking of a child under 18, eight counts of second-degree sexual trafficking of a child under 18, one count of first-degree statutory sodomy, four counts of second-degree statutory sodomy, one count of second-degree sodomy, and seven counts of furnishing pornographic material to a minor – second offense. He was convicted on all charges.
“It took tremendous courage for the repeatedly traumatized victims of this heinous sexual
predator to come forward and testify at his trial,” Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said. “I commend
their bravery, as well as the skill and sensitivity of our prosecutorial team that put him in prison,
likely for the rest of his life.”
Wilbert has a 2010 conviction of first-degree child molestation. He spent eight years in state prison before being released.
Because of this prior conviction, he will receive a mandatory life sentence, with the possibility of parole after a minimum of 15 years behind bars.
Wilbert will be formally sentenced on Nov. 18.
