A Skamania County man was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to nearly 21 years in federal prison for producing child pornography of a neighbor younger than 12, according to a Department of Justice news release.
Steven Lee McBride, 51, a registered sex offender, pleaded guilty in August 2020.
He was convicted in 2007 in Idaho of molesting two teenagers younger than 16. He was sentenced to 15 years in a state prison and moved to Skamania County after he was released, the federal agency stated.
Between September 2017 and May 2019, he took sexually explicit images of a distant relative’s child by hiding a camera in a bathroom. He also molested the child and posed as a school friend online to demand photos of the child, according to the Department of Justice.
Investigators say McBride threatened to kill the child’s family if the child didn’t continue to send sexually explicit photos.
Police in Queensland, Australia, investigated McBride for circulating sexually explicit images of a child online in the agency’s jurisdiction. McBride told an undercover investigator the identity of the child in the photos, according to the news release.
The Vancouver Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations contacted the victim’s parents and arrested McBride on June 7, 2019, the Department of Justice stated.
At McBride’s sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle said, “It is not hyperbole to say what happened to this victim is a life sentence. These traumas follow the victim their whole life long,” according to the news release.
The judge ordered McBride be on life-long supervised release after his 251-month prison sentence.
McBride was also sentenced in Skamania County Superior Court to 75 months in prison for molestation, according to the Department of Justice. That term will run concurrently with the federal sentence, pursuant to a plea agreement.
“Congress has appropriately mandated some of the lengthiest sentences for those who abuse our vulnerable children,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman in the news release. “In this case the defendant, with prior child sex crime convictions, used stealth, deception and ultimately threats to harm and kill loved ones, to force a young child to do his sick bidding. This lengthy sentence is fully appropriate.”
