GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A person will spend at the least 50 years behind bars for sexually assaulting quite a few women whereas working as a gymnastics and dance coach in metro Grand Rapids.
Shannon Guay, 51, was sentenced Wednesday on 22 counts — 21 counts of felony sexual conduct and one rely of kidnapping — by seventeenth Circuit Court docket Decide Paul Denenfeld.
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Denenfeld sentenced Guay to a minimal of 25 years for every of two counts of felony sexual conduct. These sentences will run consecutively. For the remaining 19 counts of CSC and one rely of kidnapping, Guay acquired concurrent sentences. That every one means Guay will spend a minimal of fifty years in jail, the Kent County Prosecutor’s Workplace confirmed.
Guay can be 101 by the point he might get out of jail. He’s anticipated to file an enchantment.
The sentence is justice for greater than a dozen ladies who say their childhood, sense of security and safety and happiness had been stripped away by their very own coach.
“You cannot hurt us anymore,” one of many survivors mentioned throughout sentencing. “Cannot keep us silent anymore.”
A minimum of 14 ladies say they had been sexually assaulted by Guay once they had been between the ages of 4 and 15 years previous. 4 survivors spoke throughout Wednesday’s sentencing.
“I can’t drive through (Grand Rapids) without constantly being reminded about what you did to me,” one survivor mentioned. “Every movie theater, every gym, every park, every bookstore and coffee shop, every mall, every parking lot, every place that my memories are stained, I can barely breathe.”
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Guay labored at a number of gymnastics, martial arts and dance studios in metro Grand Rapids and out of state. It wasn’t till Could 2023 that Guay was arrested in Florida after a lady got here ahead. It led to quite a few different ladies breaking their silence, saying they had been additionally assaulted. The survivors say they held their ache in for many years.
“None of it should have been put on me to carry,” one mentioned. “I was just a child, just trying to survive.”
Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Elizabeth Bartlett learn one other survivor’s assertion in court docket.
“How dare you have stolen from me something so pure and innocent that it rerouted my identity?” the survivor mentioned. “You traumatized me, altered my brain pathways and damaged the little girl with a bright smile and enduring spirit.”
One other survivor mentioned that she has “been weighed down by shame for (her) entire life.”
“I felt dirty, used, worthless, unlovable,” she mentioned.
The survivor mentioned she met Guay as a younger baby and he manipulated her and her household.
“Because of the trust that I had in the defendant starting from such a young age and then his deep betrayal of that trust, I have had a severely warped view of the world and the people in it. I have always had issues connecting with people and have had very few close relationships of any sort in my life,” she mentioned. “I feel like I’ve just been holding on for dear life, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
A jury in April discovered Guay responsible of 21 counts of CSC and one rely of kidnapping. He and his protection denied lots of the allegations. After listening to the survivors’ tales, Guay was given an opportunity to talk Wednesday morning.
“No thanks,” Guay informed the decide.
Prosecutors, citing the variety of survivors and the magnitude of their struggling, requested the decide to take the weird step of imposing two consecutive sentences, ensuing within the minimal sentence of greater than 50 years.
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Denenfeld agreed, saying that in 16 years of being a decide, “this case probably presents as much harm and damage as any case that I have presided over.”
“This is right up at the top of the list,” he mentioned. “The number of victims that are here in this case, the age of many of these victims when they were being sexually assaulted, Mr. Guay’s position of having access to many of these young people of various ages … makes this case, I think, different maybe even than any other case that I’ve had.”
Some survivors informed the court docket “they still haven’t gotten over” Guay’s actions, Denenfeld mentioned.
“God help us, hopefully they will at some point, but they may not ever be able to get over this kind of trauma,” the decide mentioned.
