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A registered sex offender from Bergen County lured a woman from the other side of the world to the United States so he could sexually abuse her two young children, federal authorities charged.
Corey Hipscher, 52, of Lodi first got the woman's 11-year-old daughter to take naked selfies and send them to him after connecting directly with the youngster on social media, the FBI said.
Among the horrific images, federal authorities said, is a video of the youngster self-penetrating with the top of a bowling pin.
Soon after, Hipscher struck up a "purported online romantic relationship" with the girl's mother on a different social platform.
All the while he kept prodding the child for more explicit photos and videos, according to an FBI complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark.
Hipscher brought the mother, the girl and both her 9-year-old sister and their younger brother to New Jersey in September 2022, the complaint says.
He took both girls to his apartment, where he sexually assaulted the older one and took naked photos of both of them, it says.
The family went back to their country after a month, then returned to the States last year, the FBI said.
Soon after, Hipscher proclaimed publicly that he and the mother were engaged to be married.
Last August, Lodi police received a report of sexual abuse of the older child. They immediately alerted members of Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella's Special Victims Unit.
Prosecutor's detectives arrested Hipscher on Aug. 10, 2023. They charged him with aggravated sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact and child endangerment.
He remained jailed as a series of unspeakable allegations came to light.
According to the subsequent federal complaint, a cellphone that was on Hipscher's bedside table "was logged into an account for an end-to-end encrypted email service based outside the United States" that belonged to him.
Emails retrieved through the phone contained video-conferenced sessions between Hipscher and the children, who the complaint says were "naked and engaging in sex acts."
One of the recordings, involving the bowling pin, was particularly heinous, authorities said. Metadata shows the video was recorded in January 2022, several months before the family came to the U.S.
In the upper-right picture-in-picture of the video call, Hipscher masturbates, the FBI complaint says.
In another video, the older girl is naked and dancing, according to the complaint. The picture-in-picture shows Hipscher.
A photo was also found of both sisters "standing completely nude" in Hipscher's apartment, it says.
Originally from North Caldwell, Hipscher was already more than familiar to law enforcement.
Criminal records show that he was convicted in Florida of false imprisonment and sexual battery of his then-girlfriend in 2002. This put Hipscher into the state's sex offender registry, which included a requirement that he stay away from children.
Time passed and in 2009 Hipscher was accused of fondling two sisters -- ages 7 and 9 -- and, before that, a 10-year-old girl, while working at a water park in Florida.
Jurors in separate trials found Hipscher not guilty in both instances.
However, a judge in Florida sentenced Hipscher to 15 years in prison in 2012 after finding that the evidence in both cases met the standard for a probation violation from the 2002 rape case.
Hipscher spent only six years behind bars for the violation. He moved to Bogota after being released in 2018, records show.
Then came last summer's arrest out of Lodi.
The FBI ended up taking over the case, noting that the videos and other images are considered interstate foreign commerce.
The government has also made fighting the sexual exploitation and abuse of youngsters a priority through Project Safe Childhood, which unites federal, state and local law enforcement "to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children as well as to identify and rescue victims."
U.S. Marshals went to the Bergen County Jail last Friday, March 22 and took Hipscher into their custody. They brought him to Newark, where federal authorities charged him with producing, receiving and possessing child pornography.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Cathy L. Waldor ordered Hipscher detained following a brief hearing in Newark on Tuesday, March 26.
U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip Sellinger credited FBI Newark’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force with the investigation leading to the charges. He also thanked the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office and Lodi police.
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