And the hits just keep on coming for SUNY Albany students who were indicted earlier this week for fabricating a hate crime against them aboard a city bus. Today two of the three women were expelled from the school, which mere months earlier was the scene of a Black Lives Matter protests in their honor.
The three were indicted on Monday on charges stemming from an assault they instigated, then later reported as a hate crime against them.
Ariel Agudio and Asha Burwell were the two who were expelled, while Alexis Briggs was suspended for two years.
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Via Fox News:
University at Albany President Robert J. Jones said in an email to The Albany Times Union Thursday that … Agudio and … Burwell were dismissed from the college….
Agudio and Burwell were charged with misdemeanor assault and falsely reporting an incident and Briggs was charged with misdemeanor assault in February stemming from a January bus incident. News 10 reported Wednesday all three women pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The women, all 20 years old, claimed they were attacked early on the morning of Jan. 30 while riding a bus. They claimed they were called racial slurs and were physically attacked while bystanders looked on.
This case received national coverage when leading Democrat presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, tweeted this message of support for the story and the girls involved:
There's no excuse for racism and violence on a college campus. https://t.co/ADVghl4iEv -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 4, 2016
Clinton has yet to retract the tweet or issue a statement since the narrative changed from a white-on-black hate crime, to a black-on-white hate crime.
Within days of the girls making their claims, cell phone video of the incident made it’s way to social media. The video, along with other footage screened for local civil rights advocates, didn’t seem to support the women’s claims of racial slurs being thrown at them, and in fact showed that Agudio, Burwell, and Briggs instigated the entire incident.
Numerous other camera angles were viewed by officials, and over 30 witnesses were interviewed.
Audio of the 911 calls surfaced shortly thereafter, with one catching Agudio twice saying of the incident that “I think it’s so funny,” before adding she “beat up a boy.” As the call is transferred, Agudio’s tone changes almost immediately as she tries to tell the dispatcher that she and her friends “got jumped” in a “racially” motivated attack. Additionally, the girl who had seconds ago said she “beat up a boy” now claimed that “we were three black girls beaten up by 20 white people.”
Audio of yet another 911 call involved Agudio saying “I think it’s funny how I had three b**ches down.”
Eventually, in late February, the women would be charged with their own crimes not only for fabricating the story but for assaulting the same innocent students they would later claim were racist.
One of the true victims endured cervical sprain and/or bruising and an investigator called their story “false and baseless.”
Despite the gravity of their actions, actions that had the potential to start race riots in the city of Albany, the three women were still given a chance to atone for their crimes.
They were given the opportunty to accept a plea deal if they made a public apology to the students whose reputations could have been destroyed by their story. They refused, and the case moved to a grand jury which indicted them on elevated charges.
Despite overwhelming evidence that the three SUNY students had lied about the entire incident, their lawyers continued to insist that they were being “academically lynched” and claimed it would be unfair if they were kicked out of school.
Kicked out, they were.
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession