Stephen Andrew Goode

Gresham man gets over 8 years for sexually abusing girl on trip to Bend

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“A Gresham man was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for sexually abusing a child on a trip to Bend in 2018.

The trial of Stephen Andrew “Steve” Goode took place over four days last week in a Deschutes County Circuit courtroom. The jury deliberated for five hours Friday and Monday before returning unanimous guilty verdicts on all four charges: first-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse, menacing and strangulation.

Sodomy and sex abuse fall under Oregon’s Measure 11 mandatory minimum sentencing law for serious felonies.

Goode, 40, was arrested in August 2019 after his victim made disclosures to a child-abuse investigator with Portland-based CARES NW. In a nearly hourlong taped segment that was played for the jury, the girl described how a year earlier, Goode had crept into her room and strangled and forcibly sodomized her in the middle of the night.

Goode and the victim were in Bend at the time visiting relatives.

“After years of allowing his sexual deviancy to fester, his deviancy culminated in an act of violent sodomy,” prosecutor Brooks McClain wrote in a court document.

The state presented six witnesses, including law enforcement officers, child-abuse specialists and the victim, who testified the incident affected every aspect of her life. She described how the abuse had taken such a significant toll on her mental health, she tried to kill herself on two occasions.

The defense offered no witnesses.

Judge Randy Miller went along with the sentencing recommendation in assigning Goode 100 months in prison to be followed by 20 years of supervision.

“As disturbing as the behavior is, it fits squarely within the charges and the joint recommendation,” Miller said. “There’s no reason to stray from those, as troubling as it is.”

Goode appeared at sentencing by video from the Deschutes County jail. He has no prior convictions in any state.

“The offenses for which the jury in this case found Mr. Goode guilty are his first in his 40 plus years of life,” said Goode’s attorney, Robert Crow. “Mr. Goode has spent much of his life in the service of his community and church.”

Goode spent two years in the Philippines on a church mission. He’s been married for 13 years and has a 12-year-old son.

Several of his relatives submitted letters to the judge to consider at sentencing.

His mother wrote Goode was the “peacemaker” of his five siblings, the “gentle giant without guile.”

Goode’s relatives asked Miller to recommend imprisoning Goode near them in the Willamette Valley.

In the end, Miller did not issue such a recommendation.

Goode is charged in a separate case from 2021 alleging 12 counts of encouraging child sex abuse. He’s pleaded not guilty in that case. No trial date has been set.”

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