Teen Charged In 2015 McDonald’s Brawl Gets Prison Sentence After Violating Plea Deal
The alleged leader of a group of teenage girls who viciously beat up a teen in the Flatbush Avenue McDonald’s in 2015, has been sentenced to four years in prison, reported the NY Daily News.
After a video of the brawl went viral on social media, ringleader Aniah Ferguson, who was 16 at the time, pled guilty in court and was admitted to a psychiatric facility as part of a plea deal.
But in court on Friday, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Dineen Riviezzoa found that Ferguson had failed to finish the court-ordered mental health treatment program, said the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
Nancy Ginsburg, Ferguson’s lawyer, made a case for Ferguson’s mental health issues and said she was a model student in school. But Riviezzo cited Ferguson’s repeated behavioral issues after issuing the four-year prison sentence, according to the Daily.
“I did believe she could change … but over and over again, she’d write a letter apologizing, go back in and act out again. The same day she was in court, she set something at the facility on fire,” Riviezzo said on Friday.
The other teens charged in the brawl, Mercedes Wilkinson, Tilani Marshall, Zaira Ingran, and a 15-year-old whose name the NYPD did not release at the time due to her age, either received probation, served community service, or had their case heard in family court, Ginsburg said.
The video footage of the 2015 brawl led to community uproar, as local politicians and activists called for action and social programs to stem violence among local teens.
Ferguson, a mother, is an admitted member of the Crips gang. Before being arrested for the McDonald’s assault in 2015, Ferguson had been accused of abusing her grandmother and stabbing her brother.
