A Roman Catholic deacon who served at St. Margaret Parish in Bel Air has been arrested and charged with two counts of sexual solicitation of a minor after he allegedly arranged to meet someone he believed was a 15-year-old boy for sexual activity. The person on the other end of the conversation was actually an undercover detective, and 45-year-old Kenneth Goedeke, who lives in Bel Air, was taken into custody before any child was harmed, according to authorities.
Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said detectives intervened before a child was harmed, a detail confirmed by WBAL News Radio in its report on the case. The sheriff's office reported that the church deacon was arrested on two counts of sexual solicitation of a minor after communicating and arranging to meet the undercover detective. The investigation was carried out through the sheriff's Child Advocacy Center, which has run an Internet Crimes Against Children unit since 1993 and combines specialized detectives, forensic capabilities, and electronic-storage detection dogs to root out online solicitation and exploitation, according to the Harford County Sheriff's Office.
The Harford County Sheriff's Office is the largest full-service sheriff's department in Maryland, overseeing nearly 700 sworn and civilian staff who serve more than 260,000 residents under Gahler, who was first elected in 2014 and has since won re-election twice. In the wake of the arrest, the same office urged parents and caregivers to talk openly with their children about the dangers posed by trusted adults and online predators.
A Deacon's Path Through Harford County Parishes
Per the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Goedeke was ordained a deacon in 2023 and had served at several parishes across the region over the years, including St. Isaac Jogues Church from 2005 to 2012, St. Patrick in Havre de Grace, and St. Joan of Arc in Aberdeen. He began work at St. Margaret Church in Bel Air in 2025 and, according to the archdiocese, most recently started at St. Ignatius Church in Hickory this past July.
St. Margaret Parish, founded in Bel Air in 1905, is one of the largest congregations in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and operates Harford County's oldest continuous Catholic parochial school, established in 1911, per the archdiocese's own history of the parish. Goedeke also worked at the John Carroll School, an independent Catholic high school in Bel Air serving grades 9 through 12, from 2020 until 2026, according to the archdiocese.
Church Response and Screening Questions
The Archdiocese of Baltimore has suspended Goedeke from ministry and employment pending an investigation and has removed him as a deacon. Citing law enforcement, the archdiocese said the charges are not related to anyone at the parishes or schools where Goedeke served. The archdiocese said it completed a comprehensive background and reference check before he was hired and enrolled as a deacon candidate.
Under the archdiocese's official child protection policy, all deacons, employees, and candidates for ordained ministry must undergo FBI and Maryland State Police CJIS fingerprint criminal history checks, reference checks, and child abuse prevention training before they can serve, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The archdiocese is asking anyone with knowledge of child sexual abuse to contact law enforcement, and its Office of Child and Youth Protection has set up a phone line at 866-417-7469 for related concerns. Separately, the sheriff's office has established a dedicated email tip line at [email protected] for anyone with information related to the case.
Charges Carry Steep Penalties Under Maryland Law
Sexual solicitation of a minor using a computer, phone, or internet connection is a felony under Maryland Criminal Law § 3-324, carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000 for a first offense, according to Justia Law. The statute applies even when the intended victim turns out to be an undercover officer posing as a minor. A conviction would also require Goedeke to register as a Tier II sex offender, a status that under Maryland law must be maintained for at least 25 years, per the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
The arrest lands amid continued turmoil for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in September 2023 following a Maryland Attorney General report detailing decades of child sexual abuse by clergy and church personnel involving more than 600 victims, as reported by Ms. Magazine. That bankruptcy filing came after Maryland lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act of 2023, which eliminated the state's statute of limitations for civil lawsuits alleging childhood sexual abuse — a law that previously barred survivors from filing claims after turning 38.
This month, a federal bankruptcy judge rejected competing Chapter 11 reorganization settlement proposals totaling more than $200 million submitted by the archdiocese and abuse survivors, calling both plans patently unconfirmable, according to the Maryland Daily Record. That ruling further delays financial settlements for survivors of past abuse even as the Goedeke case raises fresh alarm within the same archdiocese.
