An Austell man was sentenced to 16 years in prison for assaulting his girlfriend when she didn’t want to have sex with him.
Donatus Michale Wilkins, 45, was convicted of aggravated assault with the intent to rape, aggravated assault by strangulation and hindering a 911 call in the April 2017 incident. According to the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office, a jury found that Wilkins became violent when he tried to initiate sex and his girlfriend refused.
The woman was strangled unconscious.
“Strangulation and sexual violence go hand-in-hand, and they are especially heinous tools of control. This defendant wanted the victim to know that he was in control of what happened to her body and that even her life was in his hands,” Assistant District Attorney Drew Healy said in a news release.
Wilkins was sentenced to 40 years with 16 to serve and the remainder on probation. He will have to register as a sex offender when he is released.
The couple had been in a relationship for more than two years and shared an Austell apartment.
The girlfriend accused Wilkins of controlling behavior, according to a spokesman for the DA’s office. He thought she was seeing other men and constantly monitored where she went and who she was with.
On April 7, 2017, the couple argued after the woman returned home from a night out with coworkers. Wilkins called and texted her all night, the jury heard at trial. They went to sleep, but Wilkins was apparently dissatisfied with the way things ended.
Shortly after midnight, he tried to initiate sex, the DA’s spokesman said.
“He then got on top of her, said ‘you’re going to give me some,’ and ripped her underwear from her body,” the spokesman said. “When she started to scream, Wilkins strangled her until she was unconscious.”
The woman tried to call 911 when she came to. The jury found that Wilkins grabbed her phone and a struggle ensued before he left the apartment.
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