Los Gatos Detective and Tearful Mother Testify in Sara Cole Sex Case

The Los Gatos-Monte Sereno police detective who investigated the case against a woman accused of having sex with astudent last summer testified in court Thursday that he obtained cellphone records that implicated the defendant.

On the witness stand and under questioning by Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Timothy Moore, Detective Erin Lunsford said he had confiscated the records for Sara Palumbo Cole's phone. He also said he had interviewed her at home, during which time he believes she admitted to having had an inappropriate relationship with the boy.

He said he questioned her with the help of Detective Kevin Elliot and recorded the conversation, which was played for the jury. The recording is being used as evidence by the prosecution, and a transcript was given to the 14 jurors seated in Dept. 35 of the San Jose Hall of Justice.

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.

Lunsford said that during the interview, Cole's demeanor was friendly and helpful, but her attitude changed when the detective showed her a .

"Her hands started to shake a little bit," Lunsford said. "Her facial expressions changed ... she started to cry a little bit."  

The detective indicated Cole's body language continued to change when the officers questioned her about the type of relationship she had with the boy.

"This situation is bad ... It's bad. I feel sick to my stomach," Cole is heard saying in the recording after being asked by the officers about the nature of her relationship with the boy, who turns 18 next month.

She's also heard asking the officers in the recording, "Are you going to arrest me?"

The boy testified Wednesday afternoon that he had sex 30-40 times with Cole, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

In the recording played in court, Lunsford tells Cole that the text messages appear to be a two-way conversation and not random texts she said her kids might have sent.

The recording was used by police to file a police report and bring charges against her. 

Boy's Mother Talks About His Downward Spiral  

An emotionally upset mother testified through tears Wednesday that she had known Cole ever since her son played baseball with Cole's oldest son four or five years ago.

She said the boys were best friends and that she'd interacted with Cole at baseball games, as the two coordinated driving them around and taking them to games.

The boys started socializing after school and on weekends, and they had sleepovers at each other's homes, she said. 

The mother testified that her son was a good student and played sports for the first two years of high school and the fall of his junior year.

But in the spring of his senior year, in January 2010, he started smoking marijuana and began having difficulty in school, she said. 

Another change she said she saw in the boy was his lack of interest in baseball, a sport she said her son loved. "He quit the team," she said, beginning to cry. "He started staying away from home more ... He was gone a lot."

The mother said that after school, instead of going to baseball practice, he would go to Cole's house.

At the time, Cole was already separated from her husband, the mom testified. 

The boy had also missed many days of school during the last three months of the school year at Los Gatos High School. 

By the time summer of 2010 came around, the boy was caught with marijuana in his backpack by a school official at Saratoga High School, and he was expelled, she said.

That's when she learned about a wilderness camp in Utah that she eventually sent him to. Program officers arrived for the boy around 4 a.m. July 15, 2010, she said crying. The boy had no advance warning.

A therapist from the camp told the mother and son that they could write letters to each other. He had to leave behind his phone, as he couldn't take any electronic devices with him. At the urging of the camp counselors, he gave her the pass code to his phone. 

She said she had a strong desire to read her son's text messages to find out who was selling him drugs.

And that's when she read many text messages from Cole to her son, "a couple of them sexual in nature."

"They [text messages] were girlfriend, boyfriend, lover-type messages," she said.

The woman indicated she called police immediately, and officers went to her home right away. She said she never spoke to Cole after the discovery.

Cross Examination of Boy's Mother

Under cross examination, Cole's attorney, Mike Armstrong, asked the boy's mother if Cole had ever been inside her home. The mother said she could have been a couple of times, but more often they would chitchat on the driveway before and after play dates.

The mother also testified that her employment required her to travel frequently, and she was gone two or three days a week before December 2010.

Armstrong asked if her son had girlfriends, a question that raised the objection of Moore, the deputy district attorney, but was overruled. "I don't think he had girlfriends," the mother said.

During Armstrong's questioning, the boy's mother admitted her son was trying to sell marijuana "with Mrs. Cole's help."

The statement, however, was asked to be stricken from the record by Armstrong. Moore agreed.

The mother also told Armstrong she'd stopped giving her son money in March 2010.

When Armstrong began asking about the boy being on probation, Moore objected again.

Armstrong asked her if Cole had suggested the boy see a counselor. She concurred and said that the defendant had a son who was seeing one.

Editor's Note: Cole briefly took the stand Thursday afternoon. Unlike her booking photo, her hair was brunette, rather than blond. Her left leg was also visibly injured from an accident in 2007 during which a drunken driver nearly killed her.  

Moore is expected to cross-examine her on Monday, when the trial resumes after a break on Friday.