Tearful Burbank Fund-Raiser Recalls Incident With Minor

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 experiencing a pounding headache.

“I woke up to have [the boy] on top of me,” said Dumm, who is 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 youth, 17 at the time, already had 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 effect,” Dumm testified, saying that the youth got off her and left the room. “My recollection is the whole thing was five minutes.”

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

Her testimony, set to continue next Wednesday, marked the first time Dumm has spoken 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, she admitted having sex with the youth. She told police the youth was gripping her arms, but she also declined to say the youth 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 alleged 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 that the youth took advantage of an inebriated Dumm and that she lacked any criminal intent when they had sex.