A Cartersville teen enters a guilty plea to aggravated assault. Seventeen-year-old Austin Lee McCorkle entered the plea before Judge Suzanne Smith via Zoom Monday morning. McCorkle received a sentence of twenty years; two to serve incarcerated and the remainder on probation. He must pay $1,000 in fines, $350 in fees, and perform 250 hours of community service. He can have no contact with the victim. If ask, McCorkle must provide truthful testimony against his codefendants. McCorkle told Judge Smith that dropped out of school as a 9th grader. Judge Smith added a provision that he obtain a GED while on probation. The charge was reduced from armed robbery to assault because nothing was taken from the victim.
McCorkle is one of three seventeen year old charged with armed robbery in March. He along with 17 year old Eric Jacoby Adam Pittman and 17 year old Deidra Nicole Cornish were arrested on March 22nd. A Cartersville man said he was pistol whipped and robbed at a vacant house near Cartersville on March 20th. According to the police report, the victim said Deidra Nichole Cornish told him to meet her at 10 Quail Ridge Drive. When he got there, he said Cornish told him he needed to go meet her grandparents before they could leave.
As they got into the backyard, the victim said two men stepped out and demanded his wallet. When he said he didn’t have one, he said one the males pulled out a black and silver handgun from his waistband and struck him in the face with it. The suspects didn’t get anything because his wallet was in his car.
He ran into his car, drove to a residence on a cul-de-sac at Woodhaven Drive, and asked for help. The men, who had chased him on foot in that short distance, then ran off.
On March 22nd, the deputy found Cornish and one of the male suspects, 17-year-old Austin Lee McCorkle outside Walmart on Market Place Boulevard near Cartersville. According to the incident report, Cornish and McCorkle confessed to the crime and implicated 17-year-old Eric Jacoby Adam Pittman as the second male suspect. They said Pittman was the one who pistol-whipped the victim. On March 23rd, deputies arrested Pittman in a room at Parkway North for aggravated assault and armed robbery.
No bond has been set for Cornish or Pittman. Her attorney told a Superior Court Judge Thursday, she was not aware that McCorkle and Pittman had plans to rob the victim.