Police have gathered key evidence related to the near-fatal
beating of local developer Chris Cot
&
amp;#233 and expect to make an arrest soon.
Police have gathered key evidence related to the near-fatal beating of local developer Chris Cote and expect to make an arrest soon.
The controversial community figure awoke in his spacious, gated home early the morning of June 10 to find his hands duct taped behind his back before two masked suspects nearly beat him to death with two-by-fours. Police released a photograph of a “person of interest” late Thursday afternoon based on evidence they have collected, according to Gilroy Police Department Sgt. Jim Gillio.
The 20-minute attack – which left Cote with shattered legs, a cracked skull and brain damage – ended about 2:15 a.m., with him climbing over the 7-foot metal gate outside his house and crawling across the street to his neighbor’s front door for help, all the while dragging the legs his assailants had rendered useless, Cote said between sobs days after the ordeal.
“Somehow they tied my arms behind my back with duct tape while I was sleeping, and the first thing I woke up to was someone strangling me and holding me down,” Cote said of the two unknown masked men who he recalled wearing black sweatshirts with hoods. “I knew they were breaking my legs, but I couldn’t feel it. I started elbowing the guy behind me and got away for a few minutes, but the one guy who was hitting me with the boards the whole time said, ‘Hold him! Hold him! Hold him!’ – three times. I didn’t recognize the voice, and that’s all he said the entire time.”
What was going through Cote’s mind was keeping quiet despite the pain and driving his assailants away from the child asleep in the house, he said.
“I kept thinking, take this pain and get these guys out of the house,” Cote said, describing the bloody wrangling from the family room toward his garage, where Cote said his attackers tried to kill him by striking him in the head two to four times before he blacked out.
“I don’t know if they left me for dead or if they thought I’d bleed to death,” Cote said before pausing to take deep breaths. “They tried to kill me.”
“I woke up outside and tried to get up, but there was nothing there. All the bones were shattered, and my legs just went sideways, so I struggled to the garage and propped myself up on an old chair with wheels on the bottom and rolled over to the security gate and somehow climbed it,” Cote said, adding that it was difficult to see since one of his eye sockets was crushed. “My neighbor answered the door, and I fell inside his doorway. He got his gun and stood over me until the police got there.”
During his initial interview with the Dispatch, the local developer said he had stopped taking pain pills and suspected his assailants could have been spiteful cop-haters who were mad that two Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department deputies would be moving into Independence Square: his vacant 18-unit solar housing development on the corner of Hanna Street and Gurries Drive. Cote declined to provide the deputies’ names, and his lawyer did not return messages seeking copies of the housing contracts.
“It could have been somebody upset that I’m building houses for policemen in that neighborhood, but the reason I’m building these houses is to get rid of people like this. If they want to try and stop me, this isn’t the way to do it,” Cote said, “Or it could have been someone upset with me about the lawsuit.”
Thursday he claimed he and the Independence Square contractors had resolved more than $1 million in payment disputes during a meeting Monday. Cote said he has already satisfied his contracts and that the contractors were merely “making me jump through hoops and pay attorney fees because they want to take over the project.”
After the meeting, however, the housing project’s general contractor, Al Valles, wrote in an e-mail that his lawsuit is still alive. Online court records corroborated this and also showed a separate pending civil case against Cote filed by South County Tile & Stone. Beyond this, 17 other contractors have placed liens on Cote – including Giacalone Electrical, the owner of which, Vince Giacalone, could not be reached for comment.
“Mr. Cote convened a meeting with several of the Hanna Square Project creditors to discuss the monies he still owes on the project … We believe the evidence will show that Mr. Cote still owes a substantial amount of money on the Hanna Square Project, mostly to local subcontractors who are not in the position to withstand this type of financial loss,” Valles continued. “Finally, we trust that your inquiry into the monies owed by Mr. Cote on the Hanna Square Project are not meant to suggest, in any way, a connection between our lawsuit and his recent attack.”
While he only saw two people, Cote said more could have been waiting outside. That is why he is glad to have sheriff’s deputies volunteering their free time to watch over him, he said, adding that he will also beef up his home security system. A Sheriff’s Department spokesperson did not return a message about the volunteers by deadline, but GPD Sgt. Gillio said he had not heard of any city officers volunteering during their spare time.
Cops or no cops, Cote will see a different Gilroy when he looks out his window from now on.
“I’ve lived in this town since I was a kid and never thought I had to worry, but if I have to worry, everyone has to worry. I live in the best neighborhood in town, and they came and got me out of my house at night. Who in Gilroy closes their windows at night?”
