Laketa Cole was a Cincinnati councilwoman. Then an abusive relationship took over her life

From the moment Laketa Cole pulled up to Cincinnati City Hall on her red motorcycle with the license plate "SASSY," it was clear she wasn't your typical council member.

She'd go on to win three terms on city council, then nab a post with the powerful Public Utilities Commission of Ohio before settling into a job she loved at the Cincinnati Parks Department.

What nobody could have guessed at the time she was leaving council − or, well, ever − was that Cole was being beaten, threatened and controlled by her boyfriend William L. Cromwell, Cole's lawyer said in court. That same woman who had helped scores of people through her work was a woman in need of help.

And her relationship would end up making her a criminal.

In the summer of 2020, police in Indiana were implicating Cromwell in a fatal car crash. They wanted Cole to tell them where Cromwell was. She said she didn't know. They didn't believe her and arrested her on a charge of hiding a fugitive.

Then she was accused of defrauding a government children's welfare agency by, along with Cromwell, taking benefits she didn't qualify for because of her high-paying city job.

Frightened, Cole knew what that meant. She would have to tell everyone what she had endured.

How, she wondered, had it come to this?

Her arrest shocked those who followed city politics. There was no inkling in those initial stories of what was going on behind the scenes. It's a difficult story to tell.

Cole shared her story with The Enquirer in early 2023 shortly after she was sentenced to probation but then changed her mind about going public. As she puts her life back together as a single, working mother, she said she's now ready to tell people what she endured.

Cromwell is serving a prison sentence in Indiana unrelated to the abuse and declined to comment for this story. Cole shared photos of the abuse, which she had taken herself, but she did not want to make them public. Still, she wanted to tell her story because she knew she's not the only hidden abuse victim.

From the 'mud' to Cincinnati City Council

Cole, 50, was born in Lincoln Heights, a historically Black community outside Cincinnati where more than 60% of residents live below the poverty line. Cole was raised by a single mother. Cole's father was only a sporadic presence in her life, but nothing was going to stop Cole from being the first person in her family to graduate from college or even to vote.

She described it as "growing up in the mud."

Cole's family later moved to Cincinnati. She graduated from Aiken High School in 1991 and then went to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, where she earned a bachelor's degree in political science.

After college Cole returned to Cincinnati and worked for Cincinnati Public Schools. She also volunteered for popular longtime Councilman Dwight Tillery's reelection campaign, which led to a chief-of-staff job with then-Councilman Paul Booth. She liked that job but realized the best way to make the changes she wanted for the city was to run for council herself.

She didn't have any money. She didn't have the Democratic Party endorsement. But in 2001, Cole ran anyway.

She fell short by 1,589 votes. Undeterred, Cole took a job with the Cincinnati office that helped economically distressed communities and prepped to run again in 2003. When Booth resigned before the election, Cole was appointed to the seat.

Cole was 29. She championed bringing council meetings out into the community and led an effort to make recreation center pools accessible to kids who couldn't afford pool passes. She chaired council's budget committee.

Chris Seelbach, who served with Cole during her last year on council, said he recalls Cole as smart and a champion for those she sought to safeguard and protect.

"When faced with challenges, Laketa never backed down," Seelbach said. "She was resilient, street-smart, and able to get things done, overcoming any obstacle in her path.”

During that time she earned a master's degree in public administration from Northern Kentucky University, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

In 2010, as her time on council was winding down, Cole was planning to run for state representative but dropped out of the race and resigned from city council to take the job at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. The PUCO job was born from a political move among Democrats to avoid a contentious Statehouse primary. But Cole said she took the job because the work intrigued her.

Cole hated Columbus, though. She was single and living in the suburbs. Her friends from college were married and having kids. She was lonely.

When John Cranley, who had served on city council with her, became mayor at the end of 2013, Cole briefly worked in his office and then moved to the parks department, where she was the human resources manager.

It was 2015. Cole was at a crossroads. She didn't mind that her council days were behind her and she loved her new job. But she wondered, was she going to go through life alone?

Cole: Cromwell 'accepted me for me'

Enter Cromwell, whom she met through their local motorcycle clubs. Cromwell was gregarious, where Cole was reserved. Cromwell was a lot of fun and had tons of friends, something that drew Cole in.

Cole was settling back into life in Cincinnati. She was out of office, but people would come up to her and ask for help as if she still was in a position of power. Cole never wanted to say no, that wasn't her life anymore. But she couldn't.

Cromwell would shoo people away, giving her privacy.

"I felt like he accepted me for me and not the former council member," Cole said.

To Cole, he seemed protective and sweet. Now, she knows Cromwell was controlling.

They started dating in February 2015. In March, they took a trip with Cromwell's friends to Daytona Beach. Cole wanted to leave and Cromwell didn't, leading to a fight during which Cole said Cromwell beat her. Cole felt trapped, alone with his friends, no way to get away.

Back home, Cromwell promised to change. Cole believed him.

But it happened again. And again.

Cole would take pictures of her bruises and send them to herself, though she never did anything with them. She'd write emails to herself meant to be found that said if she were found dead, it was Cromwell who killed her. But then she'd delete them when times were good between them.

"I thought it was me," Cole said. She'd think, "Why am I not married? I thought I was a good catch. Obviously, I'm not."

"I started believing what he said," Cole said.

In text message after text message, Cromwell told Cole she was garbage. He told her she was ugly. He told her she was stupid.

"Don't nobody want you," Cromwell wrote in a text Cole showed The Enquirer.

"Ragety fat hoe!" Cromwell wrote.

"Nobody will ever marry you weird psycho ass," Cromwell wrote.

Yet Cromwell did offer Cole something she thought she might never get: the chance to be a mother.

Cole was already in her 40s. She has sickle cell disease, a painful red blood cell disorder, which is genetic. So to have a child, her partner needed to be tested and committed to what would be a difficult path to get pregnant.

Cromwell was all in. Cole thought it was a sign Cromwell did love her despite the beatings. Despite the text messages.

A baby prompts decision to escape abuse

Cromwell didn't work. He lived with Cole, though there was never the marriage she dreamed of.

Cromwell had 10 children from previous relationships. At some point, Cromwell added Cole's name to a child welfare claim without reporting Cole's $105,000-a-year parks department salary. Cole signed the paperwork, a possible felony.

Their son was born in 2017. The cycle of abuse continued.

Their son grew from infant to toddler, starting to witness the fighting and physical abuse happening to his mother.

"I couldn't let my son think that this behavior is acceptable," Cole said.

She kicked Cromwell out of her house. This was it, it was going to be over, she told herself.

Cromwell mostly moved out.

In July 2020, Cromwell was driving an Infiniti QX80 on Interstate 65 in Indiana on the way home from a trip to Chicago when he hit a car that was stopped because it had just hit a deer. A 14-year-old girl was thrown from the car and died. Cromwell didn't have a valid driver's license and he had cocaine in his system, court records would later say. But he wasn't immediately charged with a crime.

Cromwell and Cole still talked and Cole knew what had happened. But she didn't know about the drugs so she didn't think it was criminal. She thought it was an accident.

As for herself, Cole thought she was doing well. Cromwell was a good dad to their son, but that was the extent of their relationship.

Cole came home from work the night of Feb. 16, 2021, to find Cromwell had broken in. She told him to get out. He promised he was just picking up the last of his things.

Cole left with her son and went to her mother's house so he wouldn't have the chance to convince her to get back together.

The next morning at 7 a.m., the police came to Cole's mother's house, looking for Cromwell. Cole said she didn't know where he was. Because she didn't.

The police didn't believe her but left to continue their search for Cromwell. Cole went to work at the park district headquarters like it was any other day.

At 2 p.m., in the middle of the work day, officers showed up and arrested her.

Life as she knew it was over.

It was. And it wasn't.

Cole realizes she's not alone

Cole grew stronger each day that passed. She found solace in You Are Not Alone, a group started by Shannon Anderson-Hammond, a Roselawn woman and personal trainer Cole knew through bootcamp classes.

Anderson-Hammond suffered through an abusive relationship years ago and convened women in 2019 to let them know other women have troubles they find difficult to talk about.

The group originally met in person but now functions as a Facebook group. A member can just listen or read about what others are saying. And that's what Cole did. Through other women's words, she learned she was not alone.

"When you are going through things, you can feel like you are the only person facing the challenge, especially when it seems like everyone else is happy and smiling," Anderson-Hammond said. "We tell people everyone has a journey."

Cole grew braver. Recently she told Anderson-Hammond her own story.

Justice comes in a courtroom

Cromwell, 50, pleaded guilty in December 2022 to a charge of driving with a suspended license causing a death. A judge sentenced him to spend five years in prison. He declined to comment through the official prison interview request process. He was not charged with domestic violence.

He also pleaded guilty in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court in April 2021 to a charge of tampering with records for his part in the child benefits fraud. He was sentenced to spend 18 months in prison. The judge also ordered him to pay $19,490 in restitution to Hamilton County Job and Family Services.

Cole pleaded guilty In Hamilton County Common Pleas Court in January and February 2023 to misdemeanor charges of attempted obstruction of justice and unauthorized use of property for fraudulently obtaining food and medical assistance. She paid $7,500 restitution and was sentenced to a year of probation.

In court, her attorney, Bill Gallagher, said Cole suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of battered woman syndrome.

The woman in front of you today is "different than the one you saw when she was serving the city of Cincinnati," he told the judge.

At that moment nobody knew that more than Cole herself.

"I'm back in the mud again," Cole told The Enquirer shortly after her conviction last year. "I've started all over. I had two degrees I'm still paying for and I can't do anything with them. My name is mud now. The one thing I had, the only thing I had, I didn't have money. I didn't have anything. What do I have now? I don't even have a good name."

Her attorney said Cole was caught between shame and believing every lie her partner told her.

“The scientific literature is overwhelming about the effects of trauma on the survivors of domestic partner violence," said Hamilton County Prosecutor Melissa Powers. "This is why the law in Ohio has long recognized ‘battered woman syndrome’ as a legal defense in certain cases."

The prosecutor handling the case considered the abuse "absolutely a mitigating factor" in deciding to reduce felony charges to a misdemeanor, Powers told The Enquirer. "Being a prosecutor means more than just looking for convictions; it requires you to look at the entire case and circumstances to reach a just result. I am confident that happened here.”

Cole is not so different from others who suffer, said Kristin Shrimplin, president and CEO of Women Helping Women, an agency that serves survivors of sexual assault, stalking and domestic violence in Hamilton and Butler counties.

"This can absolutely happen to anyone," Shrimplin said. "Executive or elected official or policy maker or a millionaire. It goes back to one out of three women. It's not one out of three women of certain economic circumstances."

Cole had been low before. She had already climbed that hill. She would do it again.

After her arrest, Cole started her own cleaning business, working to clean homes, apartments, salons and short-term rentals.

It is a way to scrub her old life into oblivion. It is a way to vanquish the past. To get out of the mud.

If you are currently experiencing abuse, please call or text Women Helping Women's 24-hour hotline at 513-381-5610 for immediate help.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Laketa Cole's abusive relationship changed her life