Lake Worth man gets jail in child battery case
Jean Rodnez, 63, was accused of offering two teen girls $600 in exchange for sex.
WEST PALM BEACH — A Lake Worth man was sentenced to a year in jail and five years of probation Friday in a case in which he was accused of offering a pair of teens $600 in exchange for sex two years ago.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Charles Burton sentenced Jean Rodnez, 63, after Rodnez pleaded guilty to charges of online solicitation of a minor, child exploitation, false report of a crime and two charges of battery on a child.
The plea and sentence were part of an agreement in which prosecutors reduced Rodnez’s original charges of lewd and lascivious battery to battery on a child.
Because Rodnez has already served nearly nine months in jail, according to court records, he will have to serve only three additional months.
The case’s end comes more than two years after the girls, then ages 14 and 15, took Rodnez’s keys and wallet and drove off in his car after they said he tried to have sex with them.
According to investigators, Rodnez met the girls at a Mobil gas station where he worked and told them that he could get them marijuana and Xanax.
He next began sending then explicit text messages over several days, then showed up at their friend’s house in Boynton Beach when they were there for a visit and offered them a ride.
When they accepted, Rodnez’s arrest report states, he drove them to a house in unincorporated Lake Worth, where he offered them $600 for sex and touched them on their inner thighs, breasts and shoulders after they declined his offer.
The girls told investigators that Rodnez took his clothes off and tried to position one of them for sex, but she pushed him away.
The girls took Rodnez’s car after he fell asleep, according to the arrest report, and he reported the car stolen by strangers after the girls rebuffed his texts asking them to return the car.
The girls provided authorities with information about Rodnez after they were arrested and taken to a juvenile detention center.