Ariel Agudio, Asha Burwell and Alexis Briggs were indicted on charges of assault and falsely reporting an incident in January in which they alleged they were attacked by a group of white men and women on a bus.
Three New York college students pled not guilty Wednesday to charges of assault and fabricating claims of being the targets of a racially-motivated attack in January, authorities said.
Ariel Agudio, Asha Burwell and Alexis Briggs, all 20-year-old students at the State University of New York at Albany, were indicted Monday on charges of third-degree assault and falsely reporting an incident, the Albany County District Attorney said.
They pled not guilty to the charges Wednesday and were released on their own recognizance by the Albany County Court.
A tentative trial date was scheduled for September 26.
Agudio and Burwell were expelled from the university, and Briggs was suspended for two years, as part of the "student conduct process," a university spokesperson told BuzzFeed News Thursday.
"We are looking to seek appropriate justice in light of this action by the district attorney to use a grand jury as a tool to hide behind," Frederick Brewington, Burwell's lawyer, told BuzzFeed News, adding that he would address the charges in court motions.
Lawyers for Agudio and Briggs did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News's requests for comment.
The charges stemmed from a January 30 incident when the three women alleged they were assaulted and called racial slurs by a group of white men and women on a public bus. Prosecutors said that the three women were actually the perpetrators and not the victims of the assault.
In a 911 call released by officials, Burwell claimed that the three women were "jumped on a bus for being black."
"These girls jumped on us and they calling us the n-word and hitting us and so were guys," Burwell reported. "The bus driver didn't do anything about it."
In a separate 911 call, Agudio called the incident a "racial crime." She alleged the group of people on the bus "were calling us niggers and all this stuff." She said that nobody called police "because we're black."
Agudio said that their hair was ripped out and "boys were hitting us." She told the 911 operator that "three black girls were jumped by like 20 white people."
"It was a racial crime and if its not dealt with I'm calling the news," Aguido told the 911 operator.
At one point during the call, she is heard saying that she had gotten a black eye. She is also heard saying, "I beat up a boy."
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1ZjHxv4
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