Crossword Genius

To help out criminal with expression of praise in statement (10)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

contribute

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'to help' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'criminal with expression of praise in statement' is the wordplay.
'criminal' becomes 'con' (abbreviation for 'convict').
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'expression of praise in statement' becomes 'tribute' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'con'+'tribute'='CONTRIBUTE'

'out' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may be part of another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for contribute that I've seen before include "Donate" , "Give (for a common purpose)" , "Be partly responsible for" , "Give money etc for a cause" , "Furnish" .)

I've seen this clue in the Irish Times (Crosaire) and the Irish Times.
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