CONTRA COSTA, CA — A man who cut off his parole ankle monitor and violently assaulted two women will serve 169 years to life in state prison.
Mark Lewis Hinton, 44, was sentenced to 150 years to life on the rape counts, plus a 19-year determinate term.
A jury convicted Hinton of 11 felonies on Sept. 5, 2025. Sentencing was delayed for more than a year after he hired new defense counsel.
On Oct. 2, Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge John W. Kennedy sentenced Hinton four years after the attacks.
In 2011, Hinton was convicted in Contra Costa County for forcible rape, sodomy, and oral copulation. That conviction carried a 12-year prison sentence.
While on parole in September 2022, Hinton cut off his ankle monitor and went to a Concord motel where a woman he knew casually was staying with acquaintances.
Armed with knives, he struck her, forced her into another room, and sexually assaulted her while strangling and beating her, according to a news release from the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office.
He threatened to kill her if she told anyone. When police arrived, fear kept her from reporting the sexual assault, according to the district attorney's office. She later came forward to Concord police and the District Attorney's Office.
Jurors on Oct. 2 convicted Hinton of kidnapping to commit rape, forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, forcible sodomy, and assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury for that attack.
Three months later, Hinton began what a second woman, who was experiencing homelessness, believed was a dating relationship. Within weeks, he was beating her, according to a news release from the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office.
One blow fractured the bone around her eye. Hinton told her to tell hospital staff she had been in a car accident. Witnesses testified that she feared him.
On Dec. 29, she escaped to her car and called 911. Hinton forced her back inside while she was still on the line.
The next day, he threatened her with a knife and sexually assaulted her. She fled to a nearby store, where employees called 911. Police arrested Hinton in Martinez that day.
For those attacks, jurors convicted Hinton of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, domestic violence causing great bodily injury, criminal threats with a knife, assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury, and false imprisonment.
The woman Hinton sexually assaulted in 2008 also testified at trial, describing the attack that led to his 2011 conviction.
In closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Danielle Brown told jurors the second woman "said she's lucky to be alive. She realized that he was going to kill her at some point."
"He needs his victims to feel scared so that he can feel powerful," Brown said.
Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton praised the women for testifying.
"These women showed extraordinary courage in facing the person who abused them and telling a jury what he did," Becton said. "Domestic violence cases are difficult to prosecute because abusers often isolate and intimidate their victims and choose people they believe won't be heard. These survivors proved him wrong."
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This year's national theme, With Survivors, Always, calls for moving from awareness to action in support of survivors' safety, support, and solidarity.
Anyone in Contra Costa County experiencing domestic violence can call the STAND! For Families Free of Violence 24-hour crisis line at 888-215-5555, or the District Attorney's Victim Witness Assistance Program at 925-957-8650 in Martinez or 510-374-3272 in Richmond. In an emergency, call 911.
The Martinez and Concord police departments investigated the case.
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