Former professor pleads guilty to threatening reporters with machete
FOX News correspondent CB Cotton reports on Shellyne Rodriguez's guilty plea and sentencing after incident with NY Post reporters.
A New York City college professor who threatened a reporter while wielding a machete in May, pled guilty in court on Monday to menacing.
As part of the plea deal, 45-year-old Shellyne Rodriguez must complete 13 months of behavioral therapy.
Her next court date is scheduled for May 15, 2024, which is intended to ensure Rodriguez complies with the terms of the plea agreement.
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Shellyne Rodriguez leaves The Bronx County Hall of Justice after being sentenced to 13 months of behavioral therapy for menacing, Monday, October 2, 2023. Rodriguez threatened a New York Post reporter and photographer with a machete earlier this year (Kevin C Downs for Fox News Digital)
In May, Rodriguez was seen on video lunging from her apartment and into the hallway where she held a machete to veteran New York Post reporter Reuven Fenton’s throat.
Fenton knocked on her door for comment after Rodriguez, then a professor at Hunter College, lashed out at students at a table with anti-abortion materials.
Rodriguez reportedly blasted the anti-abortion material as "f- - -ing propaganda" before throwing items from the display.
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Shellyne Rodriguez leaves The Bronx County Hall of Justice after being sentenced to 13 months of behavioral therapy for menacing, Monday, October 2, 2023. Rodriguez threatened a New York Post reporter and photographer with a machete earlier this year (Kevin C Downs for Fox News Digital)
After lunging at Fenton, Rodriguez followed him to the street, NYPD said, and chased him with a machete.
On May 25, she turned herself into police after allegedly threatening to chop up the reporter with a machete.
She was charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and menacing.
Shellyne Rodriguez leaves The Bronx County Hall of Justice after being sentenced to 13 months of behavioral therapy for menacing, Monday, October 2, 2023. Rodriguez threatened a New York Post reporter and photographer with a machete earlier this year (Kevin C Downs for Fox News Digital)
Rodriguez has since been fired from Hunter College and now works at the Cooper Union School of Art, which is a private school in Manhattan.
She is listed as an adjunct professor on the school’s website, which also says she is teaching a 3-credit sculpture class during the fall semester.
Rodriguez is also involved in a federal lawsuit with the New York City Police Department, which she has accused of "executing a brutal trap for and assault on the protestors" during Black Lives Matter protest on June 4, 2020.
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Shellyne Rodriguez at the Bronx County Hall of Justice in New York, New York on Monday, June 26, 2023. Rodriguez is charged with three misdemeanors – fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree menacing – as well as menacing, which is categorized as a violation. (Kevin C Downs for Fox News Digital)
The protest was in response to George Floyd’s murder by then-Minneapolis police officers.
At the time, NYC had an 8 p.m. curfew in place. Fifteen minutes before the curfew was enacted, Rodriguez claimed the NYPD trapped them and would not let them leave.
"At around 8 p.m., the police then began a brutal physical assault on the protesters, beating them with fists, batons and bicycles; deploying pepper spray; and employing similar violence," the federal lawsuit says.
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About 250 people were allegedly arrested that night, including Rodriguez, and the NYPD allegedly held them in tight quarters during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the lawsuit.
The NYPD denied the accusations in court filings last March. The case continues to wind its way through the judicial system.
Bradford Betz of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
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