| Teacher testifies in sex assault By Ramon Coronado -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, July 16, 2005 As a basketball game played in an adjacent gym, a 26-year-old Hiram Johnson High School intern teacher was working on her computer in the office of the girls' locker room when she heard a tapping on the window. "I looked back behind me, but I couldn't see anyone," the teacher testified Friday in Sacramento Juvenile Court in the sexual assault trial of a 16-year-old student. Another sound came from the door and the woman turned again, this time to see an eye peering in at her. "I said, 'What do you want?' " the woman testified. Then she opened the door. In seconds, a male figure lunged at her and pushed her back toward her desk. A struggle ensued. "He put his hand over my mouth. He tried pulling my pants down and I pulled them up," she said. "I grabbed the collar of his jacket so he couldn't punch me. I pulled him toward me. In my training I'm taught that," said the substitute physical education teacher who last year competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials for women's wrestling. The woman, who is 5 feet 5 and weighs 135 pounds, was taking Brazilian jujitsu lessons at the time of the Feb. 15 incident. In short order she was able to dominate the struggle, causing her assailant to flee. The teacher is not being named because she is the reported victim of sexual assault. The woman's testimony came on the second day of the trial of the boy who is charged with assault with the intent to commit rape. The teen, who is not being named because he is minor, faces six years in custody at the California Youth Authority if convicted. The lanky teen, who has a baby face, sat ramrod straight in his chair. His hands were folded in front of him. As the teacher testified, he avoided looking at her, staring to the side. His public defender, Jo Ann Harris, declined to give an opening statement, but in her cross-examination and in her legal tactics she claims that police arrested the wrong teenager. After the teacher picked out the boy in a photo lineup as her attacker she was shown a yearbook picture of another student. "The victim said she was glad he wasn't in the photo lineup because she might have picked him," Harris said in court. In his opening statements, Deputy District Attorney Rick Lewkowitz said the 16-year-old was on campus after hours for basketball practice when he spotted the victim walking through the gymnasium on her way to deliver attendance records to the school's main office. A school security surveillance system captured the image of someone walking out of the main gymnasium shortly before the attack. Although the person's face is not clear, his jacket and basketball shorts match what the victim described her attacker as wearing. "I remember grabbing his black puffy jacket," the teacher testified. Hiram Johnson Vice Principal Michael Cuckovich testified that he remembered the 16-year-old, who worked in his office as a school assistant, once wore gloves with no fingertips, like ones worn by students during weightlifting class. The victim said her attacker wore fingerless gloves. Under the defense attorney's cross-examination, Cuckovich admitted he never told anyone of seeing the boy wearing the gloves until after he learned details of the assault. Another witness, a teammate of the 16-year-old, testified that he was sitting in the bleachers with the suspect at the time the assault was taking place. They were watching a girls' basketball game after their practice, the witness testified. When quizzed by the prosecutor about contrary statements attributed to him by police after the attack, the teammate said he didn't remember what he told police. Lewkowitz asked the victim, who identified the 16-year-old in court as her attacker, how confident she was in knowing he was her assailant. "I'm 100 percent sure," the woman said. The trial resumes Monday before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Kenneth G. Peterson. http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/13242596p-14085206c.html |