Dumm to Stand Trial in Alleged Seduction

BURBANK â€”  After she plied him with three or four cocktails, a 17-year-old high school football player testified, 51-year-old Salle Dumm stripped, lured him into her bedroom and grabbed him, saying, “Do this for your team.â€�

The actions of Dumm, a fund-raiser for Burbank High School charged with seducing the youth, were described publicly by the boy for the first time Thursday.

But Dumm’s lawyer insisted that it was the youth who took advantage of the obviously drunken woman and argued that sex occurred but without criminal intent on Dumm’s part.

After cross-examination of the boy, the judge ordered Dumm to stand trial on one felony count of having sex with a minor and a misdemeanor count stemming from her allegedly giving alcohol to the youth--crimes that could land her three years in state prison.

Dumm, at the time president of the Burbank Education Foundation, is a longtime school and football booster. The case has sent shock waves through the high school football program. It also led directly to the resignation last week of Burbank school board President Joe Hooven, who was told about the incident shortly after it occurred last summer, but did not tell police. Dumm was arrested Nov. 18.

Throughout the three-hour hearing before Burbank Municipal Judge Rand Rubin, Dumm listened silently, at times shaking her head as the victim described the sexual encounter in detail.

The teenager testified that on July 14, 1995, he and former Burbank schools tutor Maureen Burke were watching television in a guest house that she rented behind the Burbank home of the boy’s family. Dumm called and invited them to her house.

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The boy said he had never before met Dumm, but during the car ride to her home, Burke told him that Dumm could help his football team, he testified.

Once at Dumm’s house, he drank liquor with Dumm and Burke, he testified. The youth testified that at one point, Burke left the room. Dumm then asked him for a neck rub. He obliged, but testified that “she grabbed my hands and moved them down to her breasts.�

Throughout the evening, the boy said, he was drinking vodka and orange juice while Dumm drank three or four glasses of Kahlua.

Later, when Burke stepped outside again, Dumm disappeared from the room, the youth testified. Going to the kitchen, the boy said, he found a note on the counter that read, “meet me in my room.�

The boy described walking down the hallway, entering an open bedroom door and finding Dumm naked, leaning against her bed.

“She pulled me toward her,� he testified. “We started kissing, and then we went on to the bed.�

He said Dumm pulled off his shorts and underwear, and “we proceeded to have sex on her bed.

“She said, ‘Do this for your team. I can help out your team financially.’ �

After the sexual encounter was over, the boy testified, he left in a hurry, but not before Dumm asked him to return the next night. He said he and Burke then drove home.

Dumm’s lawyer argued that it was the boy, not his client, who was the aggressor.

“Every boy knows from the time they’re 13 or 14 that the easiest way to have sex is to get somebody drunk . . . so they won’t put up any resistance,� said Jacque Boyle. “Salle Dumm is not the perpetrator of any act that was a crime.�

During earlier cross-examination, Boyle alleged that the accuser had changed his version of events since he first spoke with police in November.

The youth testified that Dumm was “already tipsy� when he arrived at her home and that she had three more drinks while he was there.

Boyle countered that the boy had originally told police that Dumm had “13 Kahluas� while he was there. Boyle also asserted that the boy told police that Dumm “passed out� after they had sex but then testified Thursday that she had merely “gone to sleep.�

“She was so drunk she could hardly walk before you went into the bedroom, wasn’t she?� Boyle asked.

“Yes,� the boy responded.

Other than the alleged victim, the only other witness was Burke, who added a web of complications involving alleged death threats and the boy’s underwear.

Burke, 31, at one time was the fiancee of former Burbank High football coach John Hazelton, who last November reported the encounter to school district officials, who in turn contacted police. He was also Hooven’s chief accuser.

Burke testified that on the morning after the incident, she asked the boy for his underwear, which she sealed in a plastic bag and placed in her freezer. She said she wanted to preserve potential evidence.

She said that after she told her story to an assistant coach of the boy’s football team, the coach threatened to kill her if she did not keep the incident hushed up. That is why she did not immediately report the incident to police, she said. The coach was not available for comment.

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She testified that she cooperated with police in November, calling Dumm for a conversation that she had arranged to be overheard and recorded by police.

The recording was played in court. Neither Dumm nor Burke explicitly mentioned the sexual encounter, but they spoke of an evening when all three were together at Dumm’s house.

At one point, Burke asked, “What do I do with the underwear?�

“Burn it,� Dumm replies. “Please burn it.�

Dumm appeared poised throughout most of the hearing. But leaving the courthouse, and free on $30,000 bond, she broke into tears on the shoulder of a female bystander.

“There’s a lot I’d like to say, and I can’t,� Dumm told reporters.