A Brooklyn teen captured on video leading the brutal assault of a classmate was sentenced to four years in prison Friday after she ruined a second chance given by a judge to avoid time behind bars.
Aniah Ferguson sat back in her seat in Brooklyn Supreme Court and refused to get up after Justice Dineen Riviezzo sentenced her to upstate time for her role as the ringleader in a gang assault inside a Flatbush Ave. McDonalds in March 2015.
“Don’t fight, just get up and walk,” said one of the seven male and female court officers who surrounded Ferguson.
Before the judge determined Ferguson’s sentencing, her attorney Nancy Ginsburg, with a shaky voice, pleaded her client’s case.
Ginsburg noted that Ferguson was a misguided youth who needs proper mental health care and was mischaracterized by the media and prosecutors.
Ferguson, 18, who wore an orange jumpsuit with a cast on her left arm and hand, briefly gazed at Ginsburg with tears in her eyes.
“In fact, she had received awards in school for the most outstanding student,” said Ginsburg who pointed out that the victim Ariana Taylor was not seriously injured.
Ginsburg also noted that the other co-defendants who pleaded guilty either received probation, served community service or had their case heard in family court.
“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,” said Riviezzo.
Assistant Brooklyn District Attorney Janet Gleeson’s objected the judge’s decision to allow Ferguson to seek mental health treatment at the August Aichhorn Center for Adolescent Residential Care in Morningside Heights instead of prison.
Ferguson, who was 16 at the time of the beatdown, was denied youthful offender treatment by Riviezzo, who wanted to believe she could change.
“The behavior that puts us where we are, started long before she was put on Rikers,” said Justice Riviezzo.
Prior to Ferguson’s gang assault indictment, she was busted for assaulting her grandmother and stabbing her brother.
“I wish you the best of luck, I sincerely do. Don’t give up on yourself, but you have to want this for your self,” said Riviezzo to Ferguson.
Ferguson, a mother of a 3-year-old daughter, has another pending assault case in the Bronx.
