Rapist gets two life prison terms

'96 crime draws maximum time

Friday, July 10, 2009

Before James Clinton Cole's sentencing, the victim, now 24, said that she had thought about the Waldorf attack every day since it happened on Aug. 20, 1996.

"He might've had the last word almost 13 years ago, but luckily, today in the court system, the state and my family and myself have the last word," the victim said.

Her mother gave a tearful statement to the judge, and her father also spoke during the hearing.

"I hope he never, ever gets out of jail," her father said. "He's rotten to the core, and that's all I can say. May he rot in hell."

Charles County Deputy State's Attorney Anthony B. Covington told the judge that Cole also has convictions for raping a family member, once in 1989 and again in 1996.

"That man is evil. This is about the third time I've said that in all the years I've been doing this job," he said.

Cole offered condolences to the victim and her family, but said he wasn't responsible for the sexual assault.

"I can understand how they feel about the situation, about their daughter being raped and such and such," he said. "But I had nothing to do with that."

He said no real evidence connected him to the crime.

Charles County Circuit Court Judge Amy J. Bragunier sentenced Cole to life in prison for first-degree rape and life in prison for first-degree sex offense.

The two terms will run consecutive to each other and to the sentence that Cole is already serving, the judge ruled.

"You have no empathy. Nothing but a selfish point of view, only concerned about your own well-being. You are a sociopath," said Bragunier as she issued her sentence. "[The victim] is a remarkable young woman … and for her to have held up the way she has is truly admirable."

According to attorneys and court testimony, the 12-year-old victim had been hanging out with some friends on the afternoon of Aug. 20 and was on her way home before the attack. As she neared a bike path behind Benjamin Stoddert Middle School, she saw a man in the woods, Covington said.

The man grabbed her, dragged her into the woods and smashed her face into a tree trunk. He was carrying a knife and threatened to kill her, according to Covington.

After raping the young girl, the man bound her hands and feet and left her in the woods, Covington said.

The victim freed her legs and ran to a home in Lovelace Court, ringing the doorbell with her nose because her hands were still tied.

The homeowner testified that she let the girl inside, locked the doors of her home and called police.

Several days after the attack, Cole was arrested for the rape of his family member, and sheriff's officers decided to interview him about the assault near Benjamin Stoddert.

Retired Charles County sheriff's officer Eric Destefano testified that he helped with the interview.

Cole told police he spent the afternoon of the rape driving around, at one point stopping to withdraw cash from a bank in Waldorf, according to testimony.

During the interview, Destefano asked Cole whether his fingerprints were on some soda cans found near the crime scene.

"He said he had been there the day before and had smoked crack there the day before and discarded them by the rape scene," said Destefano on Wednesday.

The former officer then asked Cole how he knew the location of the rape scene, and the man said he'd seen it on the news.

Destefano also told Cole that there appeared to be bodily fluid on the victim's jeans and asked him if his DNA would be on the pants.

"[Cole] says, ‘I know that evidence will probably connect me to her, but I didn't rape her,'" Destefano testified.

As an explanation, Cole told police that he had urinated in the woods, according to the testimony.

The jury returned its verdict on Thursday less than an hour after attorneys in the case gave closing arguments, which centered on recently performed DNA testing that linked Cole to a ligature used in the crime.

Defense attorney Makeba Gibbs pointed out that a test conducted by the Maryland State Police shortly after the attack excluded Cole. Jurors should question the validity of the 2008 test, she argued.

"What they're doing, in my opinion, is trying to make it fit," Gibbs said of investigators.

Covington said that the more recent analysis was of a different scrap of fabric, which explained the new result.

"This is what I call a red herring," he said in response to the defense's argument.

After the verdict and sentencing, Covington said that the jury made the right decision.

"Mr. Cole shouldn't see the light of day as a free man again, and he won't."

Cole's defense attorneys, Gibbs and William Renahan, both with the public defender's office, declined to comment except to say that the case will be appealed.

brodgers@somdnews.com