Orange County News
For Immediate Release Contact: Christopher Borek
Tuesday, March 20, 2018 845.291.3276, 845.238.4245c
District Attorney Hoovler Announces Guilty Plea in Robbery Case
Defendant Admits to Holding Four-Year-Old Girl with a Knife
in to Steal the Child’s Mother’s Car Keys
Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler announced that on Monday, March 19, 2018, Eileen Medina, 17, of Monroe, pleaded guilty before Orange County Court Judge Craig Stephen Brown to Robbery in the First Degree, for having forcibly stolen car keys from a woman by threatening the woman’s four-year-old daughter to a knife on December 11, 2017. Under the terms of the plea agreement placed on the record at the time Medina pleaded guilty, the District Attorney’s office will recommend that she be sentenced to nine years in state prison and five years post-release supervision when Medina is sentenced on May 3, 2018.
At the time that she pleaded guilty, Medina admitted that on December 11, 2017, while she was at her foster mother’s home in the Town of Monroe, she forcibly stole car keys belonging to her foster mother by physically holding onto the foster mother’s four-year-old daughter, while threatening the immediate use of a knife. Medina admitted that in the manner she used it, the knife was capable of causing death or serious physical injury to the child. Medina further admitted that she held the girl with the knife in this fashion while accompanying the foster mother upstairs to her bedroom to retrieve the car keys, and then back down the stairs, all the time telling the mother not to get close or she would hurt the four-year-old girl.
District Attorney Hoovler thanked the New York State Police for their investigation and the arrest of Medina.
The case is being prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Maryellen Albanese.
“Children are of course the most innocent of victims,” said District Attorney Hoovler. “Any defendant who would threaten a four-year-old girl with a knife in front of her mother is danger to the community, regardless of that defendant’s age. I commend the New York State Police for their investigation in this matter and the fast apprehension of the defendant. The safety of children must be our paramount concern, and my office will recommend appropriately severe state prison sentences when children are victimized.”
A criminal charge is merely an allegation by the police that a defendant has committed a violation of the criminal law, and it is not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial, during which it will be the State of New York’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.