A Central Florida man was convicted of molesting a girl younger than 12.
The Port St. John man was sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing an adolescent girl in his care.
A Brevard County jury recently convicted 39-year-old Kenneth A. Guodace of two counts of sexual battery on a victim younger than 12 and two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child younger than 12.
The guilty verdicts, secured by Assistant State Attorneys Sara Flenniken and Jennifer Mostert, mandated a life sentence without parole.
Testimony by the victim was key to the outcome.
“A young girl was afraid of speaking out about her abuse for years,” Flenniken said. “She testified that she never knew when or why it would happen. Now, five years after the abuse began, her voice was heard and she knows that she will never have to endure that abuse again.”
The girl told her mother about the repeated abuse in 2023, and the mother immediately drove her to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office’s north precinct to report it.
Before anyone saw Kenneth Guodace again, he withdrew $3,500 from a bank account he shared with the mother and fled Florida. He later turned himself in after a family member he had been staying with in Connecticut grew suspicious and told him to leave.
