PANAMA CITY — A Bay County jury has convicted Lawrence D. Brown of seducing and molesting a 14-year-old girl, according to the State Attorney’s Office.
Assistant State Attorney Christa Diviney told jurors during her opening statement that Brown, 26, met a “painfully shy” 14-year-old girl at church and set about seducing her. The seduction culminated in a meeting July 22, 2013, at a church retreat where Brown molested her. Brown used his phone to communicate with her through increasingly suggestive texts and to set up the meeting at the retreat, officials said.
He was found guilty as charged of lewd or lascivious molestation, traveling to meet a minor to commit an unlawful sex act and using a computer to solicit a sex act from a child. He faces up to 35 years in prison when Circuit Judge James Fensom sentences him Feb. 19.