Two women charged with lying about racist UAlbany bus attack go on trial Monday

ALBANY -- Two of the three former University at Albany students accused of fabricating a racially charged attack on a CDTA bus last year are scheduled to stand trial Monday.

The trial, in which the Albany County district attorney's office aims to prove the women assaulted their fellow students and then falsely reported themselves as the victims, is scheduled for 9 a.m. in Albany County Court. Judge Roger McDonough will preside.

Last year, the attack drew national attention after Asha Burwell, a black UAlbany student, took to Twitter on the morning of Jan. 30, 2016, to detail a series of harrowing events she said took place hours earlier: She and her friends, Ariel Agudio and Alexis Briggs, who are also black, got jumped on a bus by a group of white students hurling racial slurs, bystanders watched without helping, and when she and her friends called police, they didn't seem to care.

But was that what really went down?

The district attorney's office doesn't think so, and neither does the university, which expelled Burwell and Agudio and suspended Briggs, who was deemed less culpable.

Read more: http://www.syracuse.com/state/index.ssf/2017/04/two_women_charged_with_lying_about_racist_ualbany_bus_attack_go_on_trial_monday.html