Cole found guilty of assault, reckless driving
BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. » After eight hours of deliberations over a twoday period, a Saratoga County jury on Friday found local businessman John Cole guilty of three of four charges lodged against him over a one car crash that left a passenger paralyzed from the neck down.
Cole was indicted in October by the Saratoga County District Attorney’s office for being the alcohol-impaired driver of a car that drove east to west on Sittlerly Road in Halfmoon at high speed, failed to make a curve, and hit a tree.
In a statement on the jury verdict, Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen said Cole was found guilty of assault in the second degree, a Class D violent felony, driving while ability impaired, a traffic violation, and reckless driving, an unclassified misdemeanor.
The jury found him not guilty of vehicular assault in the second degree. The jury also preferred the lower charge of driving while ability impaired to the charge of driving while intoxicated as shown on the indictment. Cole’s blood alcohol content was never mentioned during the case on orders from Saratoga County Court Judge James A. Murphy III.
Media reports and images of the court room show that Cole was taken into custody by court officers immediately after the verdict was read and remanded to Saratoga County Jail. He is to be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. April 27.
Cole, 53, of Clifton Park, is the owner of five area Cole’s Collisions auto body repair shops.
After a night out on March 11 last year which included dinner and drinks in at least two area establishments, Cole, his wife Regina, and longtime friends Deanna and Scott Shapiro were involved in a car crash that so injured Deanna Shapiro she is a quadriplegic.
During the two week trial that ended at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, the prosecution called the Shapiros to the witness stand to describe the night of the accident. Regina Cole testified in a similar fashion for the defense a day later and gave an alternate opinion of what took place in Cole’s 2015 BMW as it headed west on the road shortly
before midnight.
Cole was represented by attorney Cheryl Coleman. The prosecution was presented by Assistant Dis- trict Attorney Katherine DeMarino. Both attorneys presented expert crash reconstruction experts as witnesses during the trial.
In her statement, Heggen said the evidence presented to the jury showed Cole consumed alcohol at two local establishments before get- ting behind the wheel of his 2015 BMW with his wife and the Shapiros.
“He recklessly drove down Sitterly Road at 78 mph – almost twice the posted speed limit of 40 mph – through multiple curves,” Heggen said in her statement. “As he drove at such a high rate of speed, he lost control of his vehicle and eventually crashed into a tree.”
Heggen noted the car was equipped with an airbag control module which captured data that documented the speed of the vehicle, the fact that Cole kept the accelerator pedal depressed all the way to the floor throughout the crash, and that he failed to engage the brakes at any time.
“This case,” Heggen said in her statement, “represents the tragic results that too often occur after someone gets behind the wheel of a motor vehicle and drives while under the influence of alcohol. His reckless conduct of speeding on a curvy road, at almost twice the speed limit, together with being impaired by alcohol, was the formula that resulted in the victim’s life being forever changed.”