Published: April 29, 2009 11:48 pm      

Ex-child advocate faces up to 70 years for sex abuse

EBENSBURG — A former volunteer advocate for children in court cases was sentenced Wednesday to 32 to 70 years in state prison for raping and sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy.

Judge Timothy Creany imposed the stiff sentence despite pleas for leniency from the defendant’s family.

The sentence likely will keep 48-year-old Larry Knipple behind prison bars for the rest of his life, Creany said.

After hearing damaging testimony from a state psychologist about Knipple’s behavior, the judge determined that Knipple is a pedophile and a sexually violent predator likely to commit such crimes again.

Knipple also was fined $4,000.

In December, he was convicted by a jury of eight charges – three each of rape of a child and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and two of indecent assault.

Knipple was a volunteer with the county’s court-appointed special advocate (CASA) program from 1997 until his arrest in 2005 on unrelated charges. In that case, he was accused of possessing obscene materials that showed naked young boys and attempting to remove the images from his computer. He entered pleas and was placed on probation for three years in August 2006.

In the sex-abuse case, the boy, now 14 and living out of state, testified at Knipple’s trial that he had been abused by Knipple during three months in 2004, starting when the boy was 9 years old.

In a letter read in court by Assistant District Attorney Tamara Bernstein, the boy wrote, “I’m mad about what you (Knipple) did to me. I’ll never get over what you did to me.”

The judge rejected a motion by defense attorney Michael DeRiso of Pittsburgh for Knipple to continue to be free on bail while appealing his conviction to the state Superior Court.

Knipple, of Greenich Street, Stonycreek Township, became tearful as he asked the judge to take into consideration his family’s testimony, including that of his 84-year-old mother, who said she depends on her son to take care of her and her house. Other family members talked about Knipple’s deep religious faith and his volunteer work with his church and other organizations.

But Bernstein and the judge weren’t willing to accept the leniency request.

Bernstein, in asking for consecutive sentences, said: “He should be held accountable for what he did. He made a conscious decision (to abuse the boy), and he did it over and over. What about the child?”

Creany said that he found the boy’s testimony at trial “credible and persuasive.” Testimony by three now-adult men that they had been sexually abused by Knipple when they were about 11 or 12 “buttressed my opinion of the truthfulness of (the victim),” the judge said.

Even through Knipple never was charged with those offenses, Creany permitted the men to testify under rules allowing evidence of “prior bad acts” with a common scheme to be admitted into evidence.