Teacher arraigned on DWI felonies
Monitor bracelet ordered by judge
LOCKPORT — The former Lockport fourth-grade teacher whose streak of driving while intoxicated arrests have made her a well-known local name pleaded not guilty to an 11- count indictment Tuesday in Niagara County Court.
Marcy L. Cole, 35, of Main Street, Gasport, is charged with five felonies — three DWIs and two counts of first-degree aggravated unlicensed operation — along with speeding, following too closely, inadequate taillights, resisting arrest, second-degree criminal impersonation and endangering the welfare of a child.
Cole was arrested on DWI charges four times in 14 months between April 2007 and last month. The indictment deals with the last three of those incidents. Cole had pleaded guilty Oct. 2 in Town of Lockport court to a DWI misdemeanor for her first arrest April 19, 2007. She was fined $500 plus a $190 surcharge in that case, and her driver’s license was revoked.
If convicted of felonies in all three of the other incidents, Cole would face a maximum of 12 years in state prison. She is to return to court for a pretrial appearance Sept. 23, and her tentative trial date is Nov. 17.
“You are not to operate a motor vehicle under any circumstances,” Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza warned Cole.
To try to enforce that, Sperrazza ordered her to meet immediately with a probation officer to have an electronic monitoring bracelet placed on her ankle.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” defense attorney Thomas W. Scirto said. He added that the prosecution made no such request and Sperrazza was acting on her own initiative.
Town of Lockport Judge Leonard G. Tilney Jr. had set bail at $10,000 after Cole’s most recent arrest, but a male friend posted a bond a few days later and Cole was freed.
Cole and Deputy District Attorney Theodore A. Brenner declined to comment.
Cole resigned June 12 from her $51,300-a-year job as a fourth-grade teacher at Lockport’s Roy B. Kelley Elementary School, which she had held since 1999.
She had been suspended with pay, as required by state law, since Jan. 8, when she was escorted from the building after allegedly being drunk in class.
The indictment handed up by a county grand jury charges Cole with felony DWI from arrests Oct. 7 in Royalton, Jan. 10 in the Town of Lockport and June 16 in Royalton. The last two also brought aggravated unlicensed operation counts.
In the Oct. 7 incident, Cole also was charged with speeding, and accused of driving 90 mph in a 45-mph zone on Gasport Road. There allegedly was a 10- year-old girl, whom Scirto said was a friend’s daughter, in the front seat of the car, resulting in a child endangerment charge.
On Jan. 10, state troopers found Cole’s car in a ditch on Day Road. That was two days after she was kicked out of school and suspended from her job.
The June 16 arrest on Rochester Road came after citizens who knew of Cole’s record — and her revoked license — called the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office to report that she was on the road again. She allegedly gave a false name and struggled with a deputy. The criminal impersonation, resisting, following too closely and taillight counts came from that incident.
