Sara Cole,47, had sex with a minor.

[Valasca]

Los Gatos mother, who made local headlines when her legs were crushed by a drunken driver, bailed out of jail this morning after being arrested on three felony counts of having sex with a minor, according to a jail spokesman.

Santa Clara County sheriff's Sgt. Rick Sung said the bail set for 47-year-old Sara Cole was $30,000.

According to the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department, Cole surrendered Wednesday about 2 p.m. Court documents state the victim only as "John Doe,'' and the allegations stem from May 1 to July 15. Police today said the boy was a "family friend.''

Cole's arraignment date was set for Oct. 13.

The Mercury News left two messages on Cole's voice mail this morning, but the calls were not returned.

Police said they interviewed Cole last week, after they received a tip about two months ago from the parents of a teenager. She has four sons, ages 9 to 18.

The news was disappointing for many in town, including the police department, where many had become close to Cole as they investigated her accident and helped put the drunk driver behind bars.

"The chief, and several of our officers, had a supportive relationship with Sara,'' said Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Capt. Alana Forrest, the department spokeswoman. "There was certainly a level of disappointment and shock here. But we also have an obligation to the victim, and to do our job.''

Close family friend Dave Burt said he found out about Cole's arrest


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advertisement

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday night and had no comment. Los Gatos Mayor Diane McNutt also heard about the arrest Wednesday night, and she too, had nothing to say about Cole's arrest.

Cole survived a horrific accident in the parking lot of Baggerly Field off Blossom Hill Road in Los Gatos on Sept. 9, 2007.

As she was unloading one of her son's bicycle from the back of her sport-utility vehicle, Lucio Rodriguez slammed his car into her, crushing her legs and nearly killing her. His blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit, and Rodriguez, an undocumented immigrant, was sentenced in 2008 to five years in prison. At the hearing, Cole testified she did not consider him an "evil man'' and took pity on his own family.

After Cole was injured, the community rallied around her, holding car washes and setting up meal trains for her sons. She was hailed by supporters as a fighter, someone who beat death and showed compassion toward the drunk driver who mangled her legs.

A series of fundraisers were held to help her. The Los Gatos Community Foundation handed her $8,000, as she was confined to a wheelchair for some time. In 2008, she was asked to throw a ceremonial pitch at a Little League game.

The same year, there was a failed attempt in the state Assembly to create "Sara's Law," aimed at deporting illegal immigrants arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Her ex-husband, Bill Cole, had helped to work on that legislation. That was the same year she also sued the town, alleging that Los Gatos was negligent and careless about its ownership, maintenance and repair of the parking strip in front of Blossom Hill Park, an allegation the town vigorously denied.

Last year, Cole was invited by the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno police chief to speak at an event designed to warn people about the dangers of drunken driving. Cole talked about her physical pain, and how she still has to wear either stockings or leg supports because her lower body still aches.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-...nclick_check=1

So, I guess having crushed legs isn't reason enough to have sex with minors, either.

[Obsolete]

In 2008, she was asked to throw a ceremonial pitch at a Little League game.

Was this considered foreplay for her?

[redsaid]

Update:
teenager, now 17 yo testifies

He testified that the last time he has sex with her (his best friend's mother) was in a green SUV while parked at the Los Gatos elementary school, just hours before bein' takin' away in the middle of the night to a camp for troubled teens.

The encounter at Daves Avenue Elementary School was the last of at least 30 to 40 times the middle-aged Los Gatos woman and 16-year-old boy had intercourse, the boy claimed in testimony that contradicted what he told police last year.

"Did you lie last year to detectives when you told them you only had sex with Sara Cole three or four times?" prosecutor Timothy S. Moore asked, as Cole's trial on three felony counts of unlawful intercourse with a minor got under way Wednesday.

"Yes," the youth instantly said in testimony that recounted a disturbing, drama-filled relationship with Cole. Now 17 and enrolled in a Montana boarding school -- which has a curriculum that includes psychological counseling -- the teen said he believed last year that telling the truth about the 3 1/2-month affair with the 47-year-old woman would "make me look bad and I wanted to save her (Cole)."

Cole made headlines -- and benefited from an outpouring of community support -- after a drunken driver nearly killed her in 2007.
Cole's attorney, Michael W. Armstrong, pointed out inconsistencies Wednesday in the boy's account, noting lies the teen told his parents and police, including not acknowledging his use of LSD and mushrooms. The boy also told detectives that Cole initiated the intercourse, but testified that "we looked at each other and it started to happen."

The Mercury News is not publishing the boy's name because he is an alleged victim of sexual assault. Cole has pleaded not guilty, insisting she only had "intimate relations," not intercourse, with the boy. The mother of four sons is also charged with one misdemeanor count of molesting or annoying a child under 18. She may testify Thursday.

Judge Jerome E. Brock has excluded details of Cole's accident on the grounds that they were irrelevant and could unduly evoke jurors' sympathy.

During their relationship, which began 2 1/2 years after her accident, Cole and the teen exchanged 5,413 texts and 863 phone calls over seven months.

The teen's parents first reported their suspicions to police after seeing a sexually graphic text message on their son's phone. They discovered a series of disturbing texts after they had him taken to a wilderness camp for troubled children because he was getting poor grades and smoking marijuana.

Much to his surprise, the boy was jostled awake by camp counselors about 4 a.m. on July 15, 2010 -- about eight hours after his alleged encounter with Cole in the elementary school parking lot -- and flown to the Utah wilderness, where no cell phones or other electronic distractions were permitted.

The boy eventually reported the alleged sexual abuse to a therapist at the camp, who called his parents.

The boy, wearing a blue-plaid flannel shirt and jeans, told the rapt jury of seven women and five men that he and Cole often had sex in the kitchen or her bedroom while his best friend was in a nearby room sleeping or playing Xbox video games.
In the testimony, the boy described a relationship that was anything but desirable.

The teen said Cole supplied him with free food, cigarettes and marijuana -- even driving him to pick up pot. Once, he said, she promised to wait for him outside his dealer's house on Winchester Avenue, but left him stranded after discovering a text message on his cellphone from a girl he was dating, the youth testified.

The two appeared to battle constantly, judging from the text messages the prosecutor displayed for the jury. She once blocked his calls; he once damaged her back door after she locked him out because he stole her cigarettes, he testified.
Throughout the long afternoon, the boy remained poised, responding in a straightforward, mature manner even under gentle but persistent questioning by Armstrong.

But after stepping down from the witness box, he requested something of the judge that seemed to reflect his youth. Referring to a basket of treats clad in shiny gold paper that jurors had been passing around, the teen piped up, "Can I take a candy?" and grinned when the judge nodded his assent.

http://www.mercurynews.com/los-gatos/ci_18564120

[Dakota Valkyrie]

She testified. Now waiting for verdict. Went to jury yesterday.

In a stunning turnabout, Sara Cole, the Los Gatos woman accused of having unlawful sex with one of her son's best friends, told a jury on Monday that it was the teen who tried to sexually assault her, a claim she never made to police and her defense attorney never mentioned in his opening statement.

Cole said the teen touched her "inappropriately" three times, including pinning her down on a bed and fondling her until she screamed for him to stop -- a sharp contrast to the 30 to 40 instances of consensual sex the teen described last week in his testimony. Cole said she had not mentioned those details in her police interview because she was trying to help the teen.

"I feel like I should have been harsher, been more of a disciplinarian, reported what he had done," Cole testified.
[...]

The prosecution's case would be a "he-said, she-said," except for two things -- the 5,413 text messages and 863 phone calls the two exchanged during a 61/2 month period last year, which Cole sought to explain Monday, as well as the interview with Los Gatos detectives that was taped and played for the jury of seven women and five men. At no point during that interview did Cole seem shocked or outraged by the detectives' accusations.

The defense, which rested Monday, relied on Cole's testimony and contradictions between what the teen said on the stand last week and what he told police last summer. The teen tried to address that by testifying that telling the truth about the liaison with the then-47-year-old woman would "make me look bad and I wanted to save her (Cole)."
[...]

During her testimony Monday, Cole, 48, continually gave long, rambling answers. She also wrung her hands, buried her face in her hands, whimpered and cried in short spurts.

Cole said the last time the teen acted inappropriately with her occurred in July 2010 when she was alone in her 1,300-square-foot house with him. She said he came into her bedroom and offered to crack her back, something he and her sons often did for each other. Initially, she refused, but eventually allowed him to come up behind her and try it.

When she told him to stop, he threw her on the bed, straddled her, pushed up her sundress and fondled her, she said.

"At one point I started screaming -- he was trying to cover my mouth," she said. "I was screaming at him, 'stop, stop, stop, what are you doing, get off me, get off me.' "

"After that sexual assault, I assume you were afraid to be alone with him," prosecutor Tim Moore asked her.

"Yes," she said.

"But you got into a car with him -- alone -- and drove him where he wanted to go," he asked skeptically, referring to an evening about eight days or so later when the two parked at Daves Avenue Elementary School in Los Gatos.

Cole testified she was driving the teen home and only parked at the school to talk to him about his drug and other problems while they listened to music.

In contrast, the teen testified he and Cole had sexual intercourse that night in her green SUV. Last week, he testified they had sex 30 or 40 times, contradicting the "three to four times" he initially told police about when they visited him last summer at a Utah wilderness camp for troubled teens his parents put him in because of his drug use and poor grades. He also initially said she was the instigator, but testified it was mutual.

Cole described two other incidents she said involved sexually inappropriate behavior by the teen, which she said she took either as feeble attempts to joke or acting out. In 2009, he came up behind her, held her hips and pressed his crotch up against her, in front of one of her sons, she said. In May 2010, she crouched down to pick up some Doritos he dropped, and he pulled her head toward his crotch, she testified. She also testified he became physically abusive after she caught him stealing $40 from her purse. He pushed her into a wall, and she hit her head, she said.

Cole also explained the most sexually graphic text message she sent the teen -- praising a part of his anatomy -- by saying it was an "obviously inappropriate," "bad, vulgar joke" in keeping with the atmosphere of a home with four sons.

"It's like being in a locker room sometimes," she said. "There's lots of talking going on, comparisons."

When Moore asked skeptically, "Do any of your son's other friends text you and want to spend time with you alone?" Cole explained the frequency and nature of the texting by saying the teen was "like one of the family."

Cole had agreed in the police interview that she and the teen had a "physical relationship." But she testified Monday she was referring to his physically aggressive and sexually inappropriate behavior toward her, not sex. (Ya shur, ubetcha)

Also during the interview, Cole asked if she was going to be arrested and expressed fear that she "wouldn't get past it." She explained, under gentle questioning Monday by Armstrong, that she asked only because she was baffled and confused by what the detectives were doing at her house.

But on cross-examination, Moore expressed skepticism.

"You thought you were in trouble because you got sexually assaulted?" he asked.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18595427

[Darsa]

Wow, my bullshit meter just went through the roof!

[badfish76]

I have to wonder if she was still on pain meds that had a poor effect on her judgement, or if she got so caught up in being around her four sons that she forgot she was 47. Neither scenario makes it okay, but it seems really strange that she was able to overcome so much and then lost herself and ended up screwing around with a 17 year old.

I also want to point out that the boy was obviously on the highway to hell if he was carted off to a youth camp in the middle of the night BEFORE he ever admitted to banging his friend's mama. Again, that doesn't make it right but it does make me question how much of it he instigated the relationship.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Jury finds Sara Cole guilty of misdemeanor, not guilty on 2 felonies

Sara Cole survived a horrific auto accident and received a huge outpouring of community support as she healed, and now the 48-year-old Los Gatos mom must register as a sex offender.

Cole's Thursday afternoon conviction on a misdemeanor charge of molesting or annoying a child requires she register as a sex offender. After seven years, she can petition the courts to be removed from the list.

But the seven women and five men on the jury found Cole not guilty on two felony charges of having sex with a minor. The jury could not reach a decision on a third felony count.

Prosecutor Timothy Moore spoke with jurors after the verdict was announced and said 11 voted to convict Cole on the third felony, but one person would not budge from not guilty. Moore said the district attorney's office will look at whether to retry Cole on that one count.
[...]

"Honestly, I'm disappointed with the verdict," Moore said shortly after the verdict was read. "You work very hard on every case that goes to a jury, but you can't always predict what will happen."

http://www.mercurynews.com/los-gatos/ci_18617884