Convicted Rapist Receives Two Consecutive Life Sentences Plus 25 Years

MARIETTA, GA -- A Marietta man convicted of raping and robbing two women was sentenced on Thursday to two consecutive life sentences plus 25 years to serve in prison.

On Tuesday, a Cobb jury convicted Lemon McMickens of 15 counts, including two counts each of rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, and three counts of possession of a firearm during commission of a felony.

Jurors also convicted McMickens of aggravated sodomy, theft by receiving, possession of a controlled substance, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.

Both attacks occurred about 3 a.m. In the first attack, on Sept. 18, 2013, McMickens used a firearm to force a woman from the parking lot of her apartment complex at 2350 Cobb Parkway in Smyrna to a secluded area, where he raped her. Afterward, he robbed her of money.

A few months later, on Feb. 1, 2014, McMickens snatched another woman off of Franklin Road at gunpoint and attempted to rob her. When he didn’t find any money, he demanded she undress, and struck her with the weapon when she refused. He then raped her.

The woman testified during the sentencing hearing Thursday afternoon that the attack robbed her of intimacy in her relationship, and that she constantly relives the night McMickens came at her as she simply tried to get from her job to her home.

“I lost my everything,” she said.

Assistant District Attorney Lindsay Gardner said the defendant is “a predator who lurked in the dead of night to prey on innocent women.”

“They didn’t know if they would make it out alive,” she said. “He is a threat to society in every way.”

Cobb Superior Court Judge Ann Harris, who presided over the trial that lasted more than a week, told the defendant he is not deserving of leniency.

“These are not crimes of opportunity. You prepared. You waited for them, and then you struck,” Judge Harris said. “Your brazenness is disturbing.”