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Mother of girl raped by former Hubbard mayor says she feels guilty for not ‘knowing what a monster you really were’
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The mother of the girl former Hubbard Mayor Richard Keenan raped multiple times over several years told Keenan in court Monday that his actions are the reason he’s going to prison for at least 10 years, and possibly the rest of his life.
“Mental illness did not cause this. Past drug use did not cause this. Your own health problems did not cause this. You did this, and it was a choice you made, which took the innocence of a little girl,” the woman said in a statement.
Gabe Wildman, an assistant county prosecutor, read the statement Monday before Keenan received his life prison sentence with possibility of parole after 10 years.
The woman, who attended the hearing, also said Keenan “manipulated your whole family and continued to take advantage of a little girl over and over again, always acting like nothing was wrong.
“You hid behind your religion, and you pretended to be the town hero,” she said. “But I hope you realize that everything good you might have done in the past matters not compared to the disgusting things you did to that innocent little girl.”
Keenan, 66, of Moore Street in Hubbard, who served as Hubbard mayor in 2010 and 2011 and on Hubbard City Council in the early 1990s and late 1990s, also spoke.
“I wish to apologize to everybody I’ve hurt,” Keenan said, standing before Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court in a jail jumpsuit. “I deeply regret my actions and pray that they would have peace in their heart, and I am very sorry for what I have done.”
Keenan’s body shook as he spoke, as it did throughout much of the hearing. His attorney, J. Gerald Ingram, said Keenan is “obviously in ill health and very frail. He has prostate cancer, which has required multiple surgeries.”
Court filings say Keenan admitted raping and molesting the girl starting when she was 4 and continuing for three years until last June, when the allegations surfaced.
Prosecutors said Keenan admitted the rapes to his wife, admitted it during group discussions while he was in the ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital psychiatric ward and admitted it to a pastor and his brother and sister-in-law.
Prosecutors also said that after Keenan admitted himself into a Warren psychiatric facility after his release from Trumbull Memorial, he told a social worker “he was feeling suicidal because he had been molesting the child victim for approximately the past two years.”
Keenan pleaded guilty last month to eight counts of rape, four counts of attempted rape and eight counts of gross sexual imposition, all involving the same child.
He has been in the Trumbull County Jail awaiting sentencing since his bond was revoked March 20, three days after he pleaded guilty to the offenses.
Keenan, who also was a youth soccer referee, also worked as a probation officer in Girard Municipal Court in the mid-1990s and worked in the railroad industry, according to Vindicator archives.
The victim’s mother said she carries a lot of guilt for not “knowing what a monster you really were, but I can say that I have no guilt for putting you where you belong, which is in prison.”