Crime & Safety

Sara Cole: 'I Never Had Sexual Intercourse With That Person'

Defendant says boy assaulted her four times.

Under examination from her attorney, a Los Gatos woman accused of having sex with a minor denied the allegations Monday morning and said she had been the victim of a boy who had sexually assaulted her.

During the trial's third day in Dept. 35 of Santa Clara County Superior Court, Sara Palumbo Cole, 47, testified that during one occasion when the boy and one of her sons were wrestling, he pushed the front of his body into the back of her body.

The alleged incident occurred, she told her attorney Mike Armstrong, when she saw her son being beaten at arm wrestling and she wanted to arm wrestle with her son. When she got up to switch places with the boy, he went behind her, held her hips and pushed the front of his body into the back of her body.

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She said she purposely didn't say anything about the incident because her son was sitting there.

A second incident during which the boy inappropriately touched her, she said, was when he came to her home, she gave him a bag of chips to eat, made a mess and when she reached down to pick up the chips, he took her head and while he was laughing rubbed it next to his crotch.

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A third episode also happened when the boy came to her home, she was alone, and had taken money out of her purse. When she confronted him, they began arguing, she demanded the money and the boy pushed her back and her head hit the wall and he left.

The fourth time, and the most serious one, she said, once again happened when he came to her home, asked if he could crack her back and he threw both of them on her bed, positioning himself on top of her and he touched her vagina with his fingers.

She said she couldn't move, asked him repeatedly what he was doing, was pushing him and she started screaming, but the boy was trying to cover her mouth.

"He was being rough and he was hurting me," she said. "I was screaming at him ... stop, stop, stop, what are you doing?"

The incident took just seconds, she said.

She said after the alleged assault she was yelling at him and threatened to tell her husband. "I remember him saying my parents will never believe you," she said, adding she left the room and went into her kitchen. "I was foggy and numb," she added. "I was in shock."

Once again, she said she didn't tell anyone and took him home.

She also said the youth was a lot heavier than his court appearance last week when the alleged incidents occurred because he had gained weight. She said the boy apologized and was worried she was going to tell her ex-husband.

The boy then went to Seattle with parents and he called her and had a long conversation when she said she assured the boy she wouldn't tell her ex-husband about the incident.

She testified that she never provided the teen with money to buy drugs, denying specific amounts he had mentioned to police.

She denied discouraging the boys' parents from sending him to a wilderness camp in Utah to address his drug addiction and other behavior problems.

She said she had tried to block the teen from her phone, blocking him on one occasion, but somehow, she said he got around the the block and she could still get his text messages. She said she even called the phone company to explain what was happening.

Despite taking even more measures to block her phone, she said she could still get texts from the boy.

"I made it clear that I was trying to set rules for him. I made it clear that if he continued certain things that I would block his phone," she said.

When asked what things by her attorney, Cole said: "Lying."

She ultimately removed the block because he convinced her to. "He seemed to want my forgiveness ... and I always wanted to believed him."

Alluding to the boy's testimony last week that they had driven to Daves Avenue Elementary School where they had sex and he had left his phone behind, Cole denied that happening.

About a sexually explicit text that the prosecution said she sent to the boy in which she supposedly wrote: "The love of my life, Matthew ... who has as big a penis as (ex-husband), maybe even bigger. Definately [sic] better."

Cole didn't deny writing the text, but said in her household the word "penis" was used a lot because she has four sons. "It's like being in a locker room sometimes ... there's a lot of talk that goes on. Comparisons. It's something [the word penis] that boys talked about and seemed to be obsessed with."

She said she didn't like using the word, but she said she used it to stop her boys from teasing a younger brother.

"I was trying to contain the locker room," she said.

About the inappropriate physical relationship that police and prosecutors allege she had with the boy, Cole said when the investigator came to her home to question her about the allegations she thought they were asking about the boy's attacks on her.

Under cross examination from prosecutor Timothy Moore, she vehemently denied having had sexual intercourse with him. "I never had sexual intercourse with that person," she said.

Cole has pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of unlawful sex with a minor. She's also charged with a fourth count of annoying or molesting a child, a misdemeanor. If convicted, she could serve a maximum jail sentence of four years and four months.

Moore showed the jury on a large piece of paper the 5,415 texts and 863 phones calls that are said to have taken place between Cole and the boy between January and July of 2010.

This afternoon, Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Detective Erin Lunsford is expected to once again take the stand and be cross examined by Armstrong.


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