AKRON, Ohio — A man was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for impregnating his teenage stepdaughter with a syringe and violating rape laws he had pushed legislators to enact.
John Goff, 41, of Stow, quoted Bible verses and said he forgave the judge, police, prosecutors and his stepdaughter.
“I forgive you for tearing my life apart … and taking away my only son,” Goff told Summit County Common Pleas Judge John Adams.
Goff was found guilty Aug. 29 of two counts of rape, two counts of sexual battery and one count of endangering children. The maximum possible sentence was 25 years in prison.
He was convicted of breaking the rape laws that he and his wife, Narda, campaigned for in the 1990s after a man accused of molesting his stepdaughter was acquitted because of a loophole. Lawmakers changed the law in 1996 to include penetration with any object as a component to rape. Previously, only sexual intercourse was considered rape.
Shenna Grimm, who was 16 when she became pregnant, broke down as she spoke in court. “You stole my childhood and made my life miserable,” she told Goff. “For that you should be punished.”
Goff, who has been her stepfather since she was 3, stared at her, slowly shaking his head “no” back and forth.
Goff and his wife asked Grimm in December 1998 to allow Goff’s semen to be injected into her. Narda Goff could not have children because she had a hysterectomy. Grimm testified that she agreed because she feared John Goff after he threatened her with a gun and said he would hurt her mother if she did not comply.
Although Goff said he forgave Grimm, he also accused her of lying to the court.
“For the rest of her life she will know she tore her family apart for lying,” he said.
Adams ruled that Goff is a sexual predator and will have to report his address to authorities every three months after he is released from prison.
Narda Goff, 43, was convicted in March of helping him impregnate her daughter and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Paternity tests showed that Goff fathered Grimm’s baby. The boy, born in 1999, has been in foster care since March 2001 after Grimm said she could not care for him.
Goff’s lawyer Tim Ivey had argued that Goff did not commit a crime because his stepdaughter agreed to carry his child.
Assistant Prosecutor Brian LoPrinzi said during the trial that the circumstances of how Grimm became pregnant are “not only immoral but illegal and disgusting.” Grimm has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression and has attempted suicide.
Grimm, 20, of Kent, has sued the Summit County Children Services Board and Summa Health System, saying they knew of her pregnancy but did nothing to protect her from further abuse.
According to the lawsuit, John Goff abused Grimm from June 1998 to 2000. Grimm reported the abuse to Stow police in January 2001 after moving out of the Goffs’ home.
