A Vancouver sex offender was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to 23 years in prison today for making sexually explicit images of an injured girl.
Blaine K. Nipp, 37, took the videos and photographs of a 10-year-old girl whom he had been helping to care for, Acting United States Attorney Annette L. Hayes said in a news release.
The girl’s parents had no idea Nipp was a registered sex offender when they accepted his offer to care for their daughter in 2013 while she recovered from an injury.
“This horrifying betrayal of trust deserves a significant prison sentence,” Hayes said. “The defendant knew he was prohibited from having contact with children, and yet he still did so to satisfy his prurient interests. To molest a child suffering from a serious injury, and under the influence of powerful pain medication, is outrageous.”
Nipp was convicted of his first sex offense nearly 20 years ago when he fathered a child with a 13-year-old girl, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Western District office.
In the years that followed, Nipp was convicted of child pornography offenses and of entering and trespassing in an apartment where a 10-year-old was home alone.
Prosecutors said that, in August 2013, Nipp volunteered to assist the family of the victim. The family was acquainted with Nipp, but did not know him well. While alone with the injured child, Nipp took sexually explicit pictures of her while she was asleep on pain medication. Nipp also made explicit videos of his own sexual arousal and the drugged child.
The photos were later discovered on Nipp’s electronic devices, after he became the target of an investigation for trading child pornography over the Internet, prosecutors said. Nipp was arrested in January 2014 and has remained in custody since then.
“Nipp’s trading of Internet child pornography was a symptom of a larger problem,” said Brad Bench, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Seattle.
“As we later learned through our investigation, the defendant used his charm to manipulate his way into situations where he could victimize young girls. With this sentence, children will be safe from Nipp,” Bench said. “However, his victims must live the rest of their lives with the scars of his sexual abuse.”
