Michael Wise
CHARLOTTE – A 44-year-old Rock Hill, SC, man was sentenced to a prison term Thursday after a jury convicted him of statutory rape for having sex with a girl in Cornelius whom he met on Facebook.
Michael Brian Wise, 44, will serve at least 48 years in jail. He was sentenced after a trial that began Monday, March 17, before Mecklenburg Superior Court Judge Jesse B. Caldwell III.
The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Crimes Against Persons Team tried Wise for statutory rape and two counts of statutory sex offense. On Thursday, March 20, the jury found him guilty as charged. The judge then sentenced him to three consecutive sentences of 192-291 months in prison, totaling a minimum of 48 years. When he’s released from prison, he will have to register as a sex offender.
According to the district attorney’s office, Wise on Aug. 11, 2012, drove from his home in Rock Hill to Smithville Park, off Catawba Avenue, to meet a 14-year-old girl with whom he had been communicating on Facebook. Wise drove the girl to a nearby parking lot, engaged her in sexual acts and then drove back to the park.
A Cornelius police officer on patrol noticed Wise’s van in the park late that night and approached. When he discovered Wise with the girl, Wise confessed to the sex acts.
