Sentence for porn adds 8 years to Monroe man’s term

SEATTLE — A Monroe man accused of trading child pornography was sentenced Friday to eight years in federal prison.

U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour agreed that Blayne T. Hulbert, 22, shouldn’t begin serving time for distributing child pornography until after he has finished a five-year state prison stint for molesting a young relative.

That means Hulbert likely will be locked up for about 13 years, authorities said.

Agents with Homeland Security Investigations began focusing on Hulbert after they identified an email account whose user was offering to trade child pornography through a web site hosted in Russia. The email address was traced to a house in Monroe. Investigators served a search warrant on the house in November. That’s when they learned that the homeowner’s name and address had been used without his permission to set up the account. Authorities eventually traced the account to Hulbert.

He was arrested in November. Hulbert told agents that he already was under investigation for molesting a child. In May, Hulbert pleaded guilty to the federal child pornography charge. A couple months later he was sentenced to five years in state prison for child molestation.

As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors asked that Hulbert not be allowed to serve both sentences at the same time.

In asking for the lengthy sentence, federal prosecutors pointed out that Hulbert had thousands of images of depicting graphic and disturbing violence against children.

“Hulbert’s actions contributed to the demand for these horrific images of abuse,” prosecutors wrote.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.