WEST PALM BEACH — When “90 Day Fiancé” alum Caroline Schwitzky was dragged beneath the surface of Lake Boca Raton, she thought a shark had grabbed her.
“The last thing on my mind was thinking it was Cole,” Schwitzky testified on March 10. “But then when I was under the water and I looked in front of me, I saw Cole’s body, his shoulders.”
Cole Goldberg, 26, is charged with attempted murder and domestic battery by strangulation for holding Schwitzky, his then-girlfriend, under water at the Boca Bash in April 2022. Witnesses in nearby boats said he held Schwitzky by her throat “in a complete rage” until a stranger pulled her free.
His attorneys say he was drowning when he reached Schwitzky — that he had been swimming in strong current, was exhausted and disoriented, and grabbed her shoulder as an involuntary survival response with no intent to harm her. He rejected a plea deal that would have required six months in jail, opting instead for a bench trial before Circuit Judge John Parnofiello at the Palm Beach County Courthouse.
Schwitzky, a mother of three whom he dated for less than a year, appeared on the first season of TLC’s “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?” in 2016 as a Miami talent agent, working with cast member and model Paola Mayfield. She has since built a social media following of 86,000 Instagram followers, where she describes herself as an actress, producer and influencer.
She testified for more than two hours on the second day of Goldberg’s trial. Dressed in all white with a cross necklace, she described an afternoon of drunken revelry that deteriorated quickly.
Cole Goldberg accuser tells judge: ‘I thought I was going to die’
Goldberg’s mood soured early, she said, when he saw her playing football with another man on a nearby boat. He later threw a seltzer-water can at her, striking her in the face, and laughed when she screamed at him for it.
By late afternoon, she said, she wanted to leave. Goldberg kept following her around the boat, apologetic. She said she was not interested.
“I just wanted to be left alone,” she testified. “He wasn’t understanding that.”
Goldberg grabbed her from behind, she said, pulled her to the floor of the boat, bit her and dug his nails into her skin. She felt violated, she said. She screamed at him to get off her while bystanders watched, unmoved.
She finally broke free, told Goldberg, “This is over,” and jumped into the water. She described feeling Goldberg’s hands on her neck soon after, jolting her head back and forth beneath the waves while she struggled to kick free.
“I thought I was going to die,” she said.
Asked how long she was held under, Schwitzky couldn’t say with certainty, only that it felt like a long time. Long enough for strangers watching from a nearby boat to yell at Goldberg to stop, then intervene when he didn’t.
One of those strangers, Matt Paris, pulled Schwitzky from her boyfriend’s grasp. She resurfaced and tried to compose herself, she said.
“We were meant to have a good day,” she said, “and it just turned out to be a nightmare.”
Caroline Schwitzky calls alleged attacker Cole Goldberg ‘very kind and very sweet’
Schwitzky’s core account — that Goldberg grabbed her by the throat and held her under water — never wavered, but she volunteered details that complicated her own narrative.
She didn’t believe the seltzer to the face was intentional, for instance, despite prosecutors’ suggestion to the contrary. She comforted Goldberg after the alleged murder attempt and didn’t think to report him to police until she was urged by a bystander. She believed then and maintains now that he’s a good person.
“He’s not naturally an aggressive person,” she told the judge. “When he’s sober, he’s very kind and very sweet.”
Defense attorney Heidi Perlet used cross-examination to pull at the edges of her account. She established that Schwitzky was the one who insisted on staying at the Boca Bash after their friends had left, undercutting her portrayal of a day that was unpleasant from the start.
She pressed Schwitzky on why she stopped to remove her phone from a bag before swimming to escape her alleged attacker. She questioned the sequence of Matt Paris’ movements, pointing out that Schwitzky had placed him both in the water and on the boat at the moment she was pulled under.
Perlet showed the court two photographs — one taken on the Paris boat shortly after the incident, one taken at the dock — and asked Schwitzky to identify injuries to her face. Schwitzky said she believed one image showed swelling near her left eye and cheek from the seltzer can. Perlet argued the photos showed no visible injuries at all.
Perlet also asked Schwitzky about a civil lawsuit she filed against Goldberg within six months of the incident. The case remains open and has been put on hold pending the outcome of the criminal trial. Perlet suggested Schwitzky stands to collect damages if Goldberg is convicted, giving her a direct financial interest in the verdict.
Schwitzky testified for more than two hours. Goldberg is expected to also take the stand once prosecutors rest their case.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: ’90 Day’ alum testifies in ex’s Boca Bash attempted murder trial
Reporting by Hannah Phillips, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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