Girl to be tried as adult in brick attack on Temple student

CALLING HER alleged use of a brick to bash the mouth and face of a Temple University student a "determined" and "vicious" attack, a Philadelphia judge yesterday ordered a 15-year-old girl to stand trial as an adult.

Zaria Estes used her shirtsleeves to wipe tears from her eyes as Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner explained why the unprovoked March attack on Abbey Luffey a block west of campus was too serious to be sent to Family Court.

The incident, during which two other teenage girls punched and kicked Luffey and her boyfriend, Andrew Mazer, affected the entire Temple community, Lerner said.

"As horrible, as disgraceful, as disgusting was the conduct of those other girls, when you pick up a deadly weapon, when you add that element," Lerner said of the brick, "that's a whole different ballgame in my view than what those other girls were doing."

Before rejecting an impassioned argument from Estes' attorney, Bill Davis, that she was young enough to be amenable to treatment in the juvenile system, Lerner approved agreements to send the cases of co-defendants Najee Bilaal, 15, and Kanesha Gainey, 16, to Family Court.

Under the agreements with the District Attorney's Office, Bilaal and Gainey will plead guilty in Family Court to aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and related counts in exchange for being placed in a juvenile treatment facility for up to two years, Assistant District Attorney Paul Goldman said.

Once released, each girl will be on aftercare supervision, which is similar to probation in adult court, for up to a year.

Lerner said that in 15 years of handing down rulings on whether young offenders should be tried in adult or juvenile court, he had never ruled against a female defendant as young as Estes.

But the photos of the damage the brick did to Luffey's teeth and face, he said, made it clear "how hard, how determined and how vicious this assault was."

The safety of the public outweighed the defendant's rehabilitative interests, said Lerner, who scheduled Sept. 26 for a status hearing in her aggravated-assault trial. The defendant's parents, who were in court, became emotional upon hearing that she would be tried as an adult.

Estes and the two other girls set out like "a pack of predators" looking to attack female Temple students when they came across the victim and her boyfriend March 21 on Norris Street near 17th, Goldman said.

During the attack, Estes picked up a brick and used it to batter the victim's face and the back of her head, Goldman said.

During a victim-impact statement, Luffey spoke of the emergency surgery and medical procedures that were needed to repair and save her teeth, of the 40 pounds she lost, and of the fear that led her to move back home and to quit a job because she did not feel safe walking around campus.

"One act by a group of strangers has consumed my life," she said.

Her mother, Heather Luffey, in her statement lamented that her daughter wore $7,000 worth of braces for three years in high school, only to be attacked in such a cruel manner.

"Maybe these girls can learn something and help somebody out in the future," the mother said. "But this was just senseless and stupid and I can't make sense of it."