Burbank Woman Testifies in Student Sex Scandal

PASADENA — Fighting back tears, Burbank school fund-raiser Salle Dumm testified Thursday that she was startled from sleep in her bedroom last summer by a teenage football player climbing on top of her.

Dumm, 51, told a Superior Court jury that she went to bed at her Burbank home the night of July 14, 1995, after drinking a great deal of alcohol, vomiting twice and suffering from a pounding headache.

“I woke up to have [the boy] on top of me,” said Dumm, on trial for allegedly engaging in unlawful sex with a minor and contributing to his delinquency in a scandal that shook the Burbank Unified School District.

Dumm’s lawyer, Jacque Boyle, asked his client whether the then 17-year-old youth had already begun having sexual intercourse with her when she awoke.

“Yes, he had,” she said.

“I recall saying, ‘Get off of me,’ or words to that affect,” Dumm testified, saying the youth got off her and left the room. “My recollection is the whole thing was five minutes.”

Dumm testified she did not have any sexual desire for anyone that night. She also described herself as being “pretty foggy” about exactly what happened.

Her testimony, set to continue Wednesday, was the first time Dumm spoke publicly about what happened the night the youth and a tutor went to her home.

On a videotaped police interview played in Judge Thomas W. Stoever’s courtroom Wednesday, Dumm admitted having sex with the youth. She told police the youth was gripping her arms, but she declined to say that the youth had forced himself on her.

In earlier testimony, the youth, now 18, told the court that he drank three or four vodka and orange juice drinks at Dumm’s home and that she seduced him, saying, “Do this for your team.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. David Vaughn said that as president of the volunteer, nonprofit Burbank Educational Foundation, Dumm told the youth that a contribution would be made to the football team in return for sex.

Boyle contends the youth took advantage of an inebriated Dumm and that she lacked any criminal intent when they had sex.

The case resulted in criminal charges against two football coaches and led to the resignation of the president of the school board after he admitted knowing of the sex allegations but failing to notify authorities.

Dumm faces up to three years in prison if convicted.