A Coweta County man's perverse track record has reached a tipping point as he was nailed with a life sentence for molesting two girls. Reported first by FOX 5 Atlanta, Leslie Gene Patterson, 60, will live out his days behind bars without a chance for parole. Patterson, no stranger to the law with over 60 arrests, had his weeklong trial culminate in a guilty conviction for multiple felony sex crimes.
This disturbing revelation comes as a shock to a community that once unknowingly played host to his heinous acts. Patterson is accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old in 2020 and faced additional accusations from a second victim who attended one of his drug and alcohol-soaked parties at Sweetbriar Mobile Home Park back in 2015. "It is tragic that he was living freely in our community to be able to sexually assault at least two minor females," Coweta County District Attorney John H. Cranford Jr. told FOX 5 Atlanta.
Meanwhile, north in Haralson County, an elder abuse case unfolds as 62-year-old Kenneth Wayne Kimball was booked on charges related to exploitation and identity theft of an elderly person. Atlanta News First reported the Haralson County Sheriff's Office cracked the case following a family's report of financial exploitation against their elderly loved one.
The victim, who suffered from a manipulative grasp not of their own making, was continuously robbed through unauthorized credit card transactions. Sheriff Stacy Williams praised the victim's family for their diligence, saying, "I commend the family for being so proactive and protective of their loved one. Crimes against the elderly are a bane to our society." Kimball now faces a slew of charges as the authorities aim to put yet another perpetrator away for preying on the vulnerabilities of the susceptible.
