Urbana woman gets 4 years in prison, probation for drug-fueled attacks
May 30—URBANA — An Urbana resident who admitted robbing one person and beating another in the same weekend last summer has been sentenced to four years in prison.
When Tyaire Denniger-Bradley, 32, whose last known address was in the 1400 block of Silver Street, is done serving the prison sentence for aggravated battery to a senior citizen, she will then be placed on four years of probation for robbery.
"The public needs to be protected, but I am mindful of my obligation to fashion a sentence with the objective to restore the defendant to useful citizenship," Judge Roger Webber said Thursday.
Denniger-Bradley pleaded guilty in April to aggravated battery in an Aug. 7 incident that happened outside an apartment in the 900 block of East Harding Drive, in which she and another person met a 61-year-old man who was outside and agreed to return to the man's apartment for a beer.
While the man was sitting in a reclining chair, Denniger-Bradley came up behind him and threw bleach in his face, an Urbana police report said.
The man fell down and said he felt someone take his wallet from his pocket.
In exchange for her plea to aggravated battery in that case, a charge of robbery was dismissed.
In a separate case, Denniger-Bradley pleaded guilty to a robbery that happened the next day when she went to the apartment of a woman she knew in the 1600 block of East Colorado Avenue to drink and use crack cocaine.
While there, she pushed the woman against a counter, held her by the back of the neck and took about $300 cash that the woman had stashed in her sock.
Assistant State's Attorney Scott Larson presented Webber with evidence of another crime — dismissed in return for her pleas — that Denniger-Bradley had been charged with.
Urbana police Officer Bryan Fink testified that on Aug. 5, a drywall installer who was outside an apartment at 1404 Silver reported that Denniger-Bradley approached and tried to stab him with a knife.
The man fled, dropping his wallet and keys.
When Denniger-Bradley was arrested Aug. 8, she had the man's credit cards in her purse.
Larson also dismissed armed robbery and aggravated-battery charges stemming from an Aug. 2 incident outside a building at 1202 E. Harding Drive.
Denniger-Bradley allegedly approached a man drinking a beer and demanded money and a cigarette from him.
When the victim refused, Denniger-Bradley brandished a knife and pepper spray.
The man knocked the knife away and began fighting Denniger-Bradley, who ran off with the man's beer.
The man sustained a cut to his hand from the knife and a cut on the chin from the fight.
Larson argued for a sentence of 10 years on each crime for Denniger-Bradley, acknowledging her "serious issues" with ongoing mental-health problems and substance abuse.
However, Larson said the court system has tried several times to give her the help by dismissing serious charges and sentencing her to probation in multiple misdemeanor cases.
She was sentenced to drug court for a 2017 felony conviction for aggravated battery but ended up going to prison.
"She has chosen not to take advantage of those resources," Larson argued.
"When left to her own devices, she victimizes people."
Assistant Public Defender Lindsey Lepp argued for a community-based sentence for Denniger-Bradley, who she said was in a "state of active addiction" nine months ago when she committed those crimes.
Lepp said she's clean and sober from having been locked up for nine months and planned to go to a sober-living house.
Court records show Denniger-Bradley has convictions dating to 2010.
