Thursday, February 26, 2009

FORT PIERCE — A Jensen Beach man was found guilty late Thursday afternoon of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a Fort Pierce woman at gunpoint in December 2005.

A jury of five men and one woman deliberated about five hours before reaching the verdict. Immediately after the verdict was read, 35-year-old Robert Lee Kenon was sentenced to two concurrent life prison terms.

In a trial that started Wednesday, the victim testified through a Spanish interpreter that she was walking to a store in Fort Pierce that Dec. 22 when Kenon forced her into his car at gunpoint and drove her to a beach, where he touched her breasts and other private parts and tried to have sex with her until she screamed so loudly he stopped.

Afterward, she said, he drove her back to the area where he had picked her up.

Kenon maintained his innocence even after the verdict.

“It wasn’t me,” he told Circuit Judge Robert Belanger. “I don’t understand how and why this happened. I’m not satisfied with it. … It’s not over.”
Still, Kenon asked for mercy “so I can finish my life.”

Saying the victim “wasn’t seriously injured” in the incident, defense attorney Patrick MacRae asked that Kenon be given the minimum sentence under state guidelines, 173 months in prison.

Belanger didn’t buy that, noting the emotional trauma of “a most horrific kidnapping at gunpoint.”

Turning to Kenon, Belanger said, “You seem to be lacking in basic human empathy. In fact, you seem to take perverse pleasure in inflicting pain on other people.”
Belanger agreed with Assistant State Attorney Linda Baldree’s statement that Kenon is “a danger to every woman in the country.”

Kenon still faces charges of burglary, assault and lewd or lascivious conduct in an alleged March 2007 incident and charges of armed burglary, assault and indecent exposure in an alleged January 2007 incident. The 2007 incidents occurred in Port St. Lucie.

Baldree said she has to talk to victims in those cases before deciding how to proceed with prosecution.

By Tyler Treadway, TCPalm.com

Tags: assault, car, gunpoint, judge, jury, prison, sex, trial

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Courts, Crime, Fort Pierce, Jensen Beach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.