Douglas County judge gives 38-year sentence in sexual assault case

Betrayal by a man they once trusted sat at the center of Douglas County District Court on Thursday as Judge Amy Hanley sentenced Kenneth Wayne Soap to 450 months, or 37.5 years, in prison. The women who addressed the court described Soap as a friend and someone who had presented himself as a good person, making the violence feel like a deeper violation than the assaults alone.

Hanley handed down two consecutive prison terms after Soap pleaded guilty on May 1 to two counts of rape. Prosecutors said the crimes were committed in 2009, and police later found photos and videos on Soap’s computer showing him performing sex acts on unconscious women. The recordings were recovered during an unrelated investigation into alleged child sex crimes, a detail that broadened the scope of the case and underscored why prosecutors pushed for a lengthy sentence.

Soap had originally faced a much wider set of charges in Douglas County, including five counts of rape, five counts of aggravated sexual battery, one count of aggravated criminal sodomy, one count of criminal sodomy with an animal, a fourth DUI and two counts of battery on a law enforcement officer. The planned jury trial was canceled in March after both sides said a plea deal was imminent. That agreement was expected to resolve charges in four separate cases going back as far as 2008.

Before the plea hearing, Soap was being held on a $405,000 cash-or-surety bond. The sentence imposed Thursday reflected the gravity of the digital evidence as well as the assaults themselves. By recording the attacks, Soap turned the crimes into proof of deliberate domination and a willingness to preserve the abuse, not just commit it.

The adult rape case was part of a wider law enforcement picture that also involved accusations of preying on middle school girls in Lawrence and elsewhere. That separate case was dismissed locally in anticipation of possible federal charges. Police said the child-sex-crime investigation began after a Liberty Memorial Central Middle School teacher overheard pre-teen girls discussing Snapchat messages from a man, which led investigators to allegations involving 11- and 12-year-olds and the exchange of pornographic photos and videos for money.

For the women who spoke Thursday, the sentence closed a long wait for public acknowledgment of what they endured. For Douglas County prosecutors and the court, it marked a rare, forceful response to abuse hidden behind familiarity, digital evidence and years of silence.