A former Marietta resident is heading to prison for life after being convicted Thursday of repeatedly raping a child, officials said.
Michael Angelo Pabon, 50, was already behind bars in Cherokee County when his trial in Cobb County began Monday, Cobb District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Kimberly Isaza said.
In May 2013, Pabon had pleaded to child molestation and was sentenced to 15 years, Isaza said.
“The Cobb life sentence runs concurrent to the Cherokee sentence,” Isaza said in an email. “Defendants who are sentenced to life must serve 30 years before being eligible for parole consideration.”
The Cobb jury deliberated less than 30 minutes before convicting Pabon on Thursday of the rape and child molestation of a girl under 10 years of age. Pabon raped the girl weekly when he lived in Cobb between 2005 and 2008, the girl testified in court.
Though Pabon later moved to Cherokee County, he continued the abuse, Isaza said.
When the girl turned 14, in 2012, she told police what had been going on and Pabon was arrested. He insisted to police the relationship was consensual, but the age of consent in Georgia is 16.
Assistant District Attorney Hannah Palmquist lauded the girl’s courage in coming forward to testify as a 17-year-old, saying she was determined not to let anyone else suffer the way she suffered.
“Her entire childhood was defined by the abuse and the manipulation and the victimization that this defendant subjected her to,” Palmquist said. “She will now enter into adulthood defined instead by the courage, strength and selflessness that she has demonstrated.”
Jurors also heard from another woman who testified that Pabon had repeatedly raped her while she was growing up.
Immediately after the verdict, Cobb Superior Court Chief Judge Stephen Schuster sentenced Pabon to life in prison.
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