REDWOOD CITY -- It was about 4 a.m. when Lawrence Hoffman, 65,
came face to face with his 70-year-old roommate, who wore only
boxer shorts and held a metal mallet raised above his head,
according to court testimony.  While taking the stand in his own
defense at his murder trial Monday, Hoffman said the roommate,
Joseph Cosentino, had in the same moment crudely ordered him to
perform oral sex.  Hoffman snatched the mallet from the older
man in the hallway of the Burlingame apartment in December 2011,
struck him once but didn't stop.  "I kept hitting him. I
snapped. I lost it," said Hoffman. "I was in a total fury."
What left him unable to stop is the primary question of the
trial in the San Mateo County Superior Court of Judge John
Grandsaert, which could leave Hoffman facing the possibility of
decades in prison.  Defense attorney Geoff Carr says the
roommate run-in and the raw sexual advance had unlocked rage
Hoffman had carried and concealed about being raped by his
father as a teen. But Assistant District