ALL POLICE DEM TRY ABUSE

Women in McDonald’s Fight Seen Widely Online Plead Not Guilty
By JOHN ELIGON
Published: January 11, 2012

Before the mid-October night went horribly wrong, there was a dinner at Planet Hollywood. Then a trip to the Fat Black Pussycat bar. Five tequila shots later, the two women ended up at a McDonald’s in Greenwich Village, about to become Internet stars of the worst kind.
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Jefferson Siegel
Denise Darbeau, left, and Rachel Edwards, at their arraignment on Wednesday in Manhattan, face felony charges stemming from an October fight.

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What started as an argument with an employee over a $50 bill ended with the women bloodied and hospitalized after they went over or around the counter, only to be beaten by the employee with a long metal kitchen utensil.

The confrontation was recorded on a cellphone camera, and widely seen and commented upon on YouTube.

When the paramedics and police showed up, the women, Denise Darbeau and Rachel Edwards, cursed them and each other out, officials said.

Prosecutors revealed these unrecorded details from that evening for the first time on Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan when Ms. Darbeau and Ms. Edwards were arraigned on felony burglary charges.

Both pleaded not guilty and declined the prosecution’s offer to plead guilty in exchange for probation.

Although the women got the worst of the confrontation — Ms. Darbeau was hospitalized for several days with a broken skull and arm; Ms. Edwards had many cuts and bruises — a grand jury indicted them and dropped assault charges against the employee, Rayon McIntosh, who argued self-defense.

The lawyer for Ms. Darbeau, 24, and Ms. Edwards, 25, called the charges against his clients a travesty.

“The only person that uses the weapon, the only person that uses criminal force in the case is basically off the hook,” the lawyer, Harold C. Baker III, said. “And the people who got beaten to within an inch of their life are under indictment. In my opinion, that’s not consistent with justice.”

Yet Mr. Baker’s clients have not engendered much sympathy.

The cellphone video shows one of the women striking Mr. McIntosh first, and then jumping over the counter to go after him. Mr. McIntosh grabbed a thin rod used to clean the griddle and delivered a dozen or so blows, some while the women were on the ground.

Mr. McIntosh was charged with felony assault and held in jail more than a week, but drew an outpouring of support, including the creation of a Facebook page, “Free Rayon McIntosh.” Mr. McIntosh maintained that the women yelled slurs at him and that he feared for his safety.

“McIntosh is at work, not looking for trouble,” his lawyer, Theodore M. Herlich, said in an interview. “If you watch the videotape, you see how these two thugs behave. They threw the first punch.”

The grand jury not only dropped the charges against Mr. McIntosh, but also elevated misdemeanor trespass charges against the women to third-degree felony burglary.

Mr. Baker said that when the women were in the restaurant Oct. 13, they were accused of trying to pass a counterfeit bill, and that McDonald’s employees insulted them with homosexual epithets.

“It was not a one-way thing,” he explained, “where my clients went in there and went nuts.”

After the confrontation with Mr. McIntosh, the women had angry and peculiar words for the authorities and each other, according to documents released by the prosecution on Wednesday.

“I will wash you. I will wash you,” Ms. Darbeau said, apparently slang for beating someone up. “I just want to go home. Don’t touch me.”

Later, according to the documents, she told a police officer: “When you take these cuffs off, I’m going to wash you. I’m going to have your job.”

Ms. Edwards suggested that her treatment was racially motivated, calling a paramedic and a police officer “crackers,” the prosecution contends.

“If I was white, you wouldn’t be arresting me,” according to the documents. “You’re doing this because I’m black.”

At one point, Ms. Darbeau told Ms. Edwards to shut up, according to the documents. Ms. Edwards later said: “Why did this happen? Why don’t you love me the way I love you?”

Later, Ms. Darbeau said, “You can’t drink,” the documents state. “You made everything worse than it needed to be.”

While not conceding that his clients said what was in the prosecution’s documents, Mr. Baker said such statements could be understandable given the situation. “You would be in enough pain that it might make you say things that you wouldn’t normally say because you’re traumatized,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 12, 2012, on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Women in McDonald’s Fight Seen Widely Online Plead Not Guilty.