GUILTY YES

Lesbian couple pleads guilty to starting McDonald’s fracas
By LAURA ITALIANO
Last Updated: 1:42 PM, September 12, 2012
Posted: 12:09 PM, September 12, 2012

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Their case is over — and so is their romance.
The two angry lesbian McDonalds customers who suffered a skull-crushing, caught-on-video beat down at the end of a metal grill scraper pleaded guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court this morning to starting the fast food fracas.
Denise Darbeau, 24, and Rachel Edwards, 24 — who will serve no jail time under today’s plea — had been sweethearts when they walked into a West Village McDonald’s one pre-dawn morning in October, 2011.
Then they crossed paths with parolee burger jockey Rayon McIntosh.
Witness accounts vary, but the muscle-bound McIntosh told grand jurors last year that Darbeau became incensed when a manager scrutinized her perfectly good fifty-dollar bill.

STEVEN HIRSCH
Rachel Edwards

All McIntosh was trying to do at the time was hand Darbeau her extra crispy chicken sandwich. But Darbeau turned on him, mocking his Caribbean accent, shouting, “You should be deported!” and “banana boat!” McIntosh’s lawyer has said.
Darbeau is captured on cell-phone video first slapping McIntosh, then vaulting the counter. Witnesses have claimed Edwards then shouted, “If my husband gets into a fight, I got her back,” as she ran behind the counter herself.
“Stop! Stop!” customers are next heard screaming as McIntosh repeatedly raises and lowers his grill scraper.
Darbeau, hit twice, suffered a depressed skull fracture and fractured arm. Edwards, struck three times, suffered serious bruising.
“Why don’t you love me the way I love you?” Edwards would cry as they were taken to the hospital, according to their police statements.
“Shut the f— up, bitch!” Darbeau’s statements have her responding.
McIntosh was cleared in December after convincingly telling grand jurors that the women had threatened and then attacked him, and that he only struck them until they ceased their attack.
Today before Manhattan Supreme Court Gregory Carro, both women admitted that they caused the whole thing.
“It was entirely your actions that caused what we saw on the videotape, right?” Carro asked Darbeau today, as she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted burglary.
“Yes,” Darbeau answered glumly. She’ll serve five years probation and will be sentence Nov. 7.
“In fact, you both were responsible for what happened that night?” the judge asked Edwards as she pled to a reduced charge of trespassing.
“Yes,” Edwards answered glumly. She’ll serve ten days of community service and was sentenced on the spot this morning.
“We still believe Mr. McIntosh should have been indicted and that this case [against Darbeau and Edwards] was over-charged,” said defense lawyer Harold Baker, who repped both women.
No audio exists for what McIntosh said to cause the women to rush him, Baker said. “I’m sure he wasn’t offering them a Happy Meal.”
As for their relationship, “They’re on good terms,” Baker said. “They are not in a romantic relationship anymore.”