SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A 49-year-old woman who kidnapped and sexually assaulted a younger woman with a golf club because the victim had sex with the defendant's former boyfriend was sentenced Friday to 35 years to life in state prison.
Catherine McCoy was convicted last month of sexual penetration with a foreign object, with sentence-enhancing allegations of aggravated kidnapping and use of a deadly weapon.
It was her second trial on the sex charge. A jury last November convicted the defendant of kidnapping, assault and making a criminal threat, but deadlocked 11-1 for guilt on the sex charge, triggering the retrial.
"This is sadistic. She's (the victim) lucky to be alive," Deputy District Attorney George Modlin said after the sentence was handed down.
During the hearing, Modlin told Judge Jeffrey Fraser that McCoy was "mean and vindictive," acting as if "the rules don't apply to her."
In a letter read to the court, the victim's mother called the defendant "an evil person," adding, "I'm glad you won't be able to hurt anyone else."
Defense attorney Charles Adair objected to the mandatory 25-years-to-life sentence on the sexual assault charge, calling it "cruel and unusual" punishment.
Adair said McCoy acted out of revenge or jealousy because the victim had slept with the defendant's ex-boyfriend.
McCoy and her ex-boyfriend had lived together for 10 years before breaking up and McCoy had warned the victim to stay away from him, Adair said.
"She (McCoy) shouldn't have done it," Adair said of the kidnap and beating, noting that McCoy denied sexually assaulting the victim.
The judge, who called the crime a "very serious matter," noted the victim was beaten repeatedly by McCoy and co-defendant Christopher Carrera and raped with a wooden putter.
Fraser called the attack "cold, vicious and sadistic."
"The defendant has shown no remorse at all," the judge said.
At trial, Modlin said the defendant found out that the 22-year-old victim had slept with her ex-boyfriend and confronted her at a home in City Heights on Aug. 18, 2011.
"She (McCoy) said, `I'm going to kill you, bitch,"' Modlin told the jury.
The defendant punched the victim, and with the help of her friend Carrera, forced the victim into the backseat of a white Ford Excursion, the prosecutor said.
Carrera drove and McCoy jumped into the back seat and beat the victim with a Maglite flashlight and wrapped a seat belt around the victim's neck, trying to get her to admit having sex with McCoy's ex-boyfriend, whom she was trying to win back, according to Modlin.
McCoy made the victim get naked, then grabbed her grandfather's wooden putter and forced it into the victim's vagina seven to eight times, according to the prosecutor.
The prosecutor said McCoy threatened to dump Amber's body in the desert before kicking her out of the car on southbound state Route 125 near Otay Lakes Road.
After her arrest, McCoy told her grandmother in a jail call that she assaulted the victim and that "she deserved it."
Adair told the jury that McCoy met her boyfriend when she was 40 but that the two had recently broken up and she wanted him back.
The victim was a troubled woman who used methamphetamine and heroin on a daily basis and traded sex for drugs, Adair told the jury.
The defense attorney conceded that McCoy kidnapped and assaulted the victim, but he said there was no physical evidence that the golf club was used in a sexual assault.
If that happened, it would have caused damage to the victim's vaginal area, Adair said.
"This is Amber's way of getting back at Cathy," Adair told the jury.
Modlin said both the Maglite flashlight and the putter were recovered from the Excursion and putter had the victim's DNA on it.
Carrera pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison.
