HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – A South Florida man is facing six felony charges after Hollywood police said he had an 18-month sexual relationship with a teenage girl.
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According to court documents made public on Friday, authorities launched an investigation after family members confronted Ronald Edward Kent in November as he was with the girl at Oak Lake Park at 3190 N. 56th Ave., where the girl, whose age was redacted from the report, told investigators they met between 10 and 20 times for sex.
Police said Kent, 54, of Boynton Beach, would also have sex with the girl at the shuttered Serenity Oaks Addiction Treatment Center at 4200 SW 54th Court in Dania Beach, using the beds left at the abandoned facility.
Hollywood police said in its arrest report that the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which patrols Dania Beach, is also investigating Kent.
According to the report, Kent met the girl at Oak Lake Park in 2023 as he was fishing. He struck up a conversation with her and the two smoked marijuana together, it states. They then drove to a canal off Old Griffin Road in Dania Beach and engaged in a sex act for the first time, police said.
Police said they found evidence in numerous text messages between Kent and the girl, including ones that show he knew she was underage.
The girl sent him a photo of one of her breasts as well as a photo of her vagina, the report states.
“Nice I like that,” police said the Hialeah-born Kent replied after receiving the photos.
According to additional arrest reports, family members of the girl confronted Kent at Oak Lake Park on Nov. 16, 2024.
As he left, police said they followed him to a home in the 6000 block of Johnson Street and “punched him in the head and face multiple times.”
Police said one of the relatives had called them and officers arrived as they were on top of Kent, who said he wanted to press charges.
Hollywood police would later arrest the relatives on battery and false imprisonment charges. Local 10 News is not identifying them and Broward prosecutors later dropped the charges.
Kent is now the one charged following his arrest Tuesday. He’s facing individual counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, lewd and lascivious molestation of child between 12 and 16, using a computer to solicit a child, traveling to meet a minor as well as two counts related to the possession of child sexual abuse material.
As of Friday, records show he was being held in BSO’s Paul Rein Detention Facility in Pompano Beach on a $260,000 bond.