PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Craddock Verser will deliver his verdict on the guilt or innocence of former Chimacum High School Principal Rex Whipple on Friday.
Whipple is charged with 10 counts of possessing depictions of a minor in sexually explicit conduct.
He is accused of surreptitiously videotaping his 15-year-old stepdaughter in various stages of undress in their Port Ludlow home.
The trial had resumed Wednesday after both prosecution and defense rested their cases last week.
Prosecuting Attorney Juelie Dalzell called three final witnesses to the stand and both she and Alton McFadden, defense attorney, gave closing arguments in the non-jury trial Wednesday.
Verser will deliver his decision at 3:30 p.m. Friday in Jefferson County Superior Court, 1820 Jefferson St., Port Townsend.
Dalzell brought back to the stand Chris Martin, a Chimacum School District computer technical employee who had previously testified.
Martin said it would not have been possible for Whipple to notice that the remote access on his computer had been activated.
Whipple had testified that he discovered nude images of his stepdaughter on his Chimacum School District-issued laptop computer after his wife phoned him to say Whipple’s daughter-in-law had found the images on his computer.
Whipple said he checked the computer, and not only found the images but also noticed that the remote access on the computer had been activated, indicating that someone had access to download files onto his computer.
Martin testified that Whipple would not have been able to tell if the remote access had been activated.
Dalzell also called to the stand Erika Weller, a neighbor who lives four houses down from Whipple.
She testified that she never saw Whipple walking in the morning through the neighborhood.
Whipple’s ex-wife had testified earlier that Whipple had begun walking in the morning at about the time the videos started to appear on Whipple’s computer — October 2005.
The final witness Dalzell called was Dave Porter, dean of students at Chimacum High School.
Twenty-three DVDs of adult pornographic images were found in Whipple’s former office when it was searched following his March 13 arrest.
Whipple said the DVDs were copies of pictures students had looked at while at school.
The copies were made to show to the students’ parents, he testified.
Porter said that it is not the school’s policy to copy such pictures.
Instead, he said, the policy is to write a letter describing the incident.
