FORT PIERCE — A 63-year-old Port St. Lucie man was sentenced Tuesday afternoon to 30 years in prison for sexual encounters he admitted having with an 11-year-old girl in 2007.

Stephen J. King was sentenced to 30 years for attempted lewd or lascivious molestation of a child under 12 by a perpetrator over 18 and 15 years behind bars for lewd or lascivious exhibition, but Circuit Judge Robert Belanger allowed the terms to run concurrently.
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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.
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VERO BEACH — Citing allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct, an Anglican bishop has suspended the lead minister of a year-old church that broke off from the national Episcopal Church, officials said Monday.

The Rev. Lorne Coyle, of Christ Church of Vero Beach, was suspended effective 2 p.m. Sunday because his bishop received an out-of-state woman’s allegations that she and Coyle, who is married, had an affair, said the church’s senior warden, Jim Reamy III.

The bishop, from Virginia, met with Coyle last week in Vero Beach to inform him of the accusation. (more…)

Rodney Davis

A registered sex offender is behind bars on $1 million bail after he repeatedly forced a St. Lucie County girl to have sex with him since she was 12, authorities said.

The girl, now 16, told St. Lucie County Sheriff’s investigators that Rodney E. Davis had been abusing her since he was released from prison in 2004.

At that time, he had been serving a seven-year, three-month sentence after he had been found guilty in 1998 of sexually abusing a teen and other charges, state records show.

The girl told deputies Davis, 39, forced her to have sex with him and perform sexual acts throughout a four-year span.

Davis, of Fort Pierce, faces four counts of sexual battery and is being held at the St. Lucie County jail.

Staff researcher Niels Heimeriks contributed to this story.

Edgardo Sensi

Edgardo Sensi, 52, was arrested on 76 counts of possession of child pornography in September after Martin County sheriff’s deputies say they found dozens of images and videos of child pornography at his house.

Among the videos were two which showed Sensi himself having sex with young girls, one under age 12 and the other under 5. (more…)

A 32-year-old Port St. Lucie man is in St. Lucie County Jail after being suspected of hitting a woman who refused to have sex with him.

Police on Friday charged Honary V. Lamb, of the 700 block of Northwest Grenada Street, with felony domestic battery by strangulation and felony depriving a victim of 911 and misdemeanor simple battery after they received a call for help about 3:30 a.m. Friday.

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