Man pleads guilty in two sexual assaults
A 22-year-old man accused of raping two women in Columbus two years ago will spend eight years in prison.
Terron D. Parks pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday to one count of rape with a firearm specification and one count of gross sexual imposition. He faced a maximum sentence of 16- years.
He also will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Parks originally was indicted on three counts of rape and two counts of aggravated burglary, but those charges were reduced as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that was accepted by the victims, said Assistant Prosecutor Heather Williams.
Parks, listed in court documents as homeless, sexually assaulted one woman March 7, 2015, and another on July 20, 2015.
In the first assault, police said, Parks broke into an apartment and forced a woman to have sex and perform oral sex on him at knifepoint.
In the second, a Far East Side woman called 911 to report that someone was trying to break in. She told a 911 operator that she could barely see the man through her window.
Less than two minutes later, the operator heard a loud noise and a scream, according to the 911 recording. The operator called out to the woman as sounds of a struggle were overheard on the line: “Ma’am, I can’t understand you, and I can’t hear you. Ma’am?” Then the line went dead. Police said Parks forced the woman at gunpoint to perform oral sex, then ran from the apartment. When officers arrived, they chased him but he got away.
Parks was later arrested on Aug. 28, 2015, and police got a sample of his DNA, saying they would compare it with DNA from the two sexual assaults and from the slaying of a 42-year-old woman on Jan. 19, 2014, on the South Side.
He was not charged in the slaying.