Buffalo: 2 Women Sentenced for Hate Crime Attack on Muslim Woman

LOCKPORT — Two women from Niagara Falls were sentenced to weekend jail terms Friday for their hate crime assault on a Pakistani woman last summer.

Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Farkas ordered Sheree A. Sabater, 39, to four months of weekends in the County Jail and three years’ probation. Antoinette S. Ivey, 32, drew two months of weekends in jail and five years’ probation.

The 26-year-old Muslim victim, who was walking with her two children July 14 near the Tops Market on Portage Road in Niagara Falls, was wearing a head scarf at the time, police said.

“This woman and her two children were just minding their own business,” Farkas said. “These two drunk, high, out-of-control women, and I use that term loosely, pummeled her to the ground in front of her children.”

The victim said in a later Buffalo News interview that she heard one of the attackers say, “She’s Pakistani and I want to kill her.”

The nationality was just a lucky guess, Assistant District Attorney Cheryl L. Nichols said.

“I didn’t know who she was,” Ivey said in court.

Sabater said, “I feel foolish.”

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