A Los Gatos woman was slapped Friday with a five-year prison sentence for her role in stretching a rope across a Santa Cruz mountain road and nearly decapitating an unsuspecting motorcyclist.

With her manacled hands clasped in front of her, a sobbing Donna Mae Olsen, 47, turned to the courtroom gallery and addressed Robert Barnes, the victim as well as her Loma Chiquita Road neighbor, saying, “I’m very sorry” to him and his family.

Olsen and co-defendant Donald Bruce Bryant, 63, were convicted in December by a Superior Court jury on two counts each of assault with a deadly weapon. A third defendant, Edward S. Anderson, 49, Olsen’s common-law husband, was acquitted.

Both Anderson and Bryant testified during the trial. Bryant’s sentencing was postponed because his attorney, Anthony Pagkas, is preparing a motion seeking a new trial.

Olsen did not testify at her trial. She had apparently tried to strike a deal in exchange for her testimony but prosecutors did not respond, according to accounts in court Friday. Olsen has been in jail since her May 15, 2006, arrest.

Previous convictions

In handing down the maximum sentence, Judge Paul Bernal cited Olsen’s two previous felony convictions for drug possession and noted she was still on probation when she was arrested in May.

“She got what she deserved,” Barnes said. “It could have been a little longer, I think.”

Barnes, who managed to remount his motorcycle and ride away for help while bleeding, is recovering from injuries to his face and jaw. Barnes, who endured more than 500 stitches, still requires more plastic surgery and dental implant procedures.

In the aftermath, Barnes filed a lawsuit against Anderson, Bryant and Olsen, alleging negligent infliction of injury. Meanwhile, Anderson – who lives on Loma Chiquita, about a mile from Barnes – served Barnes with a lawsuit, seeking damages for libel and defamation.

In response to questions raised by Bernal and others, Bryant waived conflict-of-interest concerns, allowing Pagkas to simultaneously represent him in the criminal case and handle Anderson’s civil action.

Before being sentenced Friday, Olsen offered a rambling apology to Barnes. At one point, her attorney, Shelyna Brown, quietly counseled her, “Donna, stick to the facts.”

Olsen said she was worried about her 4-year-old daughter’s safety because of dirt bikers roaring up and down the rural road in front of her home.

She said there had been drinking, and she portrayed the hoisting of the rope as a spontaneous event, an account that prosecutor Leigh Frazier disputes.

“This took some premeditation and some planning to string up a rope like that,” Frazier said.

`I’ll never forget’

Olsen spoke about how she cut the line down with a scissors after Barnes was injured and how she was filled with remorse after seeing his face “totally rolled up.”

“I remember your eyes,” she said. “I’ll never forget what you looked like.”

Facing toward Barnes, who leaned forward in his seat to hear her words, Olsen said “If I can help you … any way I will.”

“You should have turned on Ed,” shot back Barnes, alluding to her silence during the trial.

After the hearing, Olsen’s mother, Rosetta Allen, decried the sentence. “It’s terrible,” Allen said, noting her daughter already has served a year behind bars.

But the prosecutor said the seriousness of the crime could not be overlooked.

“This could have so easily killed Mr. Barnes,” Frazier said. “Think of how it devastated his life, emotionally and financially, and the face he looks back at every day because of the injuries he had. It was such a pointless crime. I can’t understand why someone would do something so callous.”