Man sentenced for impregnating stepdaughter

updated 7:40 p.m. ET June 5, 2006

AKRON, Ohio - A man was sentenced Monday to a 20-year prison term for impregnating his teenage stepdaughter with a syringe eight years ago.

John Goff, 44, was convicted of rape after two trials under a tough state law he publicly supported before the syringe episode occurred.

Goff was convicted of forcing Shenna Grimm to be inseminated with his sperm when she was 16, at a time when her mother could no longer conceive, but both parents allege she consented.

The jury also convicted Goff of sexual battery and child endangering. He received 20 years for rape and five years for those charges, to be served at the same time.

Goff was convicted in 2002 of the same charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison, but last June an appeals court overturned the convictions, saying a detective’s testimony about statements by Goff’s wife should not have been allowed. He was convicted again in a second trial.

Grimm, now 23, gave birth to a boy in 1999 and helped raise him for a year before giving him up for adoption. The child remains with his adoptive parents.

Goff has argued Grimm agreed to the 1998 impregnation. He told Common Pleas Judge Judith Hunter he was innocent but acknowledged poor judgment.

“I will not sugarcoat what has become the most ill-conceived plan since Enron,” said Goff, who plans to appeal his conviction.

Hunter ordered Goff to register as a sexual offender when he is released from prison.

In the 1990s, Goff and his wife, Narda Goff, who is Grimm’s mother, campaigned for a tougher state rape law. Their activism grew out of the acquittal of a man accused of molesting Grimm. At the time, the law required intercourse for a rape charge.

Goff was convicted under the tougher state law.

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