photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Kenneth Soap leaves the courtroom Thursday, July 9, 2026, after being sentenced in Douglas County District Court.

Updated at 6:05 p.m. Thursday, July 9, 2026

They thought Kenneth Soap was a close friend, a good guy.

But “he had everyone fooled,” a 36-year-old woman told Judge Amy Hanley on Thursday.

He wasn’t a good guy at all. He was a serial rapist who took pleasure in violating women while they were unconscious, grotesquely filming the assaults and filing the videos in folders bearing their names.

The woman said she found out about Soap’s crimes after Lawrence police summoned her in May 2024 to tell her that she had been among his victims — for years.

She walked out of the police station that day “a completely different woman” — shell-shocked, sickened, fearful.

The trauma of that discovery was almost too much to bear, she said, reading from a lengthy, tear-filled statement before Hanley sentenced Soap to nearly 38 years in prison.

“He took a version of myself I will never get back,” she said.

That woman’s statement was preceded by that of another woman, read aloud by prosecutor Megan Ahsens, calling the 46-year-old Soap “a monster” who, without her knowledge, had done “the most horrifying things.” Like the other woman — both mothers — she described years of therapy, sorrow and an array of life challenges stemming from the trauma.

Hanley’s 450-month sentence was pursuant to a May plea deal between Ahsens and Soap’s defense attorney, Branden Smith. In that deal, as the Journal-World reported, Soap pleaded guilty to two counts of rape.

He had faced five counts of rape, five counts of aggravated sexual battery, one count of aggravated criminal sodomy, one count of criminal sodomy with a dog (one of the victim’s pets), a fourth DUI and two counts of battery on a law enforcement officer. Those charges were all largely resolved by the plea, which also included Soap pleading guilty to the fourth DUI after he left the scene of a March 17, 2021, North Lawrence accident with a blood alcohol content of .29, or more than three times the legal limit.

One of the women on Thursday thanked a teacher at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School in Lawrence, whose attentiveness brought Soap’s crimes to light.

As the Journal-World reported, the teacher overheard a group of female students talking about how Soap had sexually solicited them. The teacher’s report to police led to Soap being charged with multiple counts of sexual exploitation and child pornography. While police were investigating those allegations, they discovered the videotaped adult rapes on his electronic devices.

Ahsens on Thursday characterized that discovery as “a Pandora’s box of evil” containing the names of four women, and “these are only the ones we know about,” she added.

Before Hanley pronounced sentence she also heard from Soap’s sister, who described her brother as a generous person with a strong work ethic who donated his time as a musician to various causes and who was the single dad of two daughters. She briefly mentioned that he had suffered abuse in childhood and a traumatic brain injury in 2017 but did not provide any details.

Soap himself stood and, in a clear voice, apologized to his victims, though he did not look at the women sitting to his right in the front row.

“I feel shame, remorse and guilt,” he said, acknowledging that taking ownership of his misconduct could not repair the damage he had caused the women but could help him rehabilitate.

photo by: Contributed

Judge Amy J. Hanley

Hanley told him that true accountability would involve not just thinking about his own rehabilitation but taking to heart and “remembering forever” what the victims had expressed in court — how his criminal behavior had burdened them with pain.

Hanley saved the bulk of her comments for the victims, though, telling them she admired their strength, their resilience and their ability to articulate their experiences. She encouraged them to be forward-thinking and emphasized that the crimes perpetrated against them didn’t define them as people.

“This will undoubtedly stay with you forever, but it is over,” she said, referring to the end of the yearslong criminal justice process, if not to the end of the trauma. “I wish you peace.”

Several members of the Lawrence Police Department’s Special Victims Unit attended the sentencing hearing to support the victims. Afterward, the lead detective, Kelsey Kemppainen, told the Journal-World that “the heinous nature of of the evidence we uncovered cannot be overstated.”

“I commend the bravery of the victims who appeared today,” she said. “Their participation in sending him to prison will prevent others from experiencing what they went through.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Kenneth Soap appears Thursday, July 9, 2026, with his attorney, Branden Smith, in Douglas County District Court.