Sep. 11—LOCKPORT — Elizabeth Arvelo came to Niagara County Court Tuesday morning with a pretty simple request.
“Today, I just want justice,” Arvelo told County Court Judge Caroline Wojtaszek.
And then, looking at Brittny Robinson and Brionna Harris, the two Falls woman who had admitted to brutally beating her inside a Tim Hortons restaurant at Pine Avenue and Hyde Park Boulevard in May 2023, Arvelo said, “And I would like to see them behind bars.”
Robinson, 38, and Harris, 31, will spend the next two years in state prison, and then another year and a half on supervised release, for their guilty pleas to a single count of attempted second-degree burglary in their case. The plea was part of a deal with Niagara County prosecutors, who said they had considered the women’s lack of criminal records and strong involvement in their communities in deciding to spare them from a trial on an original charge of second-degree gang assault.
That charge, a Class C felony, had they been convicted, could have left them facing a potential prison term of up to 15 years.
Sentencing is about consequences,” Assistant District Attorney David DeChellis said. “They could have made a better choice. They could have been a role model (to their children who witnessed the attack on Arvelo). They could have acted like adults.”
Arvelo, 43, was working as the coffee shop manager on the evening of May 28, 2023, when a group of teenagers entered her store to order “drinks.” The shop had a policy of not allowing anyone under the age of 18 inside without an adult guardian.
But because it had been a “slow day” for the business, Arvelo decided to serve the teens. It was a decision, she said she quickly regretted.
“They started being loud and I asked them to leave,” Arvelo said.
When the teens went outside the store, Arvelo said, and surveillance video in evidence in the case confirmed, they continued to create a disturbance. Arvelo called her district manager and he called Falls police.
It was too late.
I was attacked by five or six people,” Arvelo said. “All I was doing was my job and I got attacked.”
The incident was captured on video by 10 cameras inside and outside the coffee shop. It was also recorded on cell phone video that was later posted on social media.
The cell phone video showed a white SUV pulling into the store parking lot. A female driver can be seen getting out of the SUV and running into the coffee shop, followed by several other adults and juveniles.
Inside the shop, the recorded video shows Robinson, Harris and a female juvenile going behind the front counter, into a restricted area of the store. Robinson, Harris and the juvenile approaching Arvelo, who was standing near a drive-thru window.
“What I witnessed on that video was brutal,” Wojtaszek said. “(Prosecutors) didn’t even need to offer a plea. The incident was on tape. Mercy was shown (by the plea offer.)”
The judge said she watched the video evidence multiple times. She said she watched Robinson and Harris “pummel” Arvelo, knocking her to the ground and then continuing to punch her after she fell.
As Arvelo lay on the ground, Wojtaszek said the video showed the female juvenile pick up “a Tim Horton’s drink” and “smash it over (the coffee shop manager’s) beaten body. There is no place for that in civilized society.”
Wojtaszek also told a crowd of close to three dozen Robinson and Harris supporters that the in-store video showed “teenagers rooting and laughing (at the attack) like it was entertainment.”
“There is a price to pay for that behavior,” Wojtaszek said.
After the attack, Arvelo spent three days in the intensive care unit of the Erie County Medical Center. She suffered a host of medical complications, including a brain bleed and didn’t work for five months.
Arvelo has returned to work as a Tim Hortin’s manager, at a different location. But she said she has anxiety and fears another attack.
“There are only two people here. There are still still four people walking around that attacked me,” she said.
In emotional remarks, before their sentencing, both Robinson and Harris expressed remorse.
“I just apologize. I’m so sorry,” Harris said. “That five minutes, that’s not me.”
At one point in her remarks, Harris began to sob and then tremble and then slumped into her seat at the defense table. Robinson, also fell forward onto her defense table, her arms flailing.
“I just want to tell the victim I am sorry,” she said. “I know I did wrong. I hope one say she can forgive me. I’m not a violent person. I don’t go around hurting persons.”
In addition to their prison and supervision sentences, Robinson and Harris were issues full stay-away Orders of Protection that will run until 2036.
The status of charges filed in Niagara County Family Court, against a 13-year-old girl involved in the assault on Arvelo, could not immediately be determined. The girl, who has not been identified under the terms of New York’s Raise the Age Law, was charged with second-degree gang assault.
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