[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] NY mom-of-three reveals why she's risking seven-year sentence at trial rather than taking a plea for mowing down 50 BLM protesters when they mobbed her car
- Kathleen Casillo, 53, told DailyMail.com she feared for her daughter's life when she floored her black BMW sedan into a group of protesters last year
- She had been going Christmas shopping with her then 29-year-old daughter, Dominique, when she says a group of protesters started banging on her car and breaking her daughter's window
- She claimed she feared the protesters were going to pull her daughter out of the car, and hit the gas, slamming into a group of 50 Black Lives Matter protesters and injuring nine last December
- In the aftermath, she was issued a desk appearance ticket and was released only hours after her arrest
- She was later charged with reckless assault in the third degree on February 22
- Casillo has since been branded as a racist, her family says, a narrative that she denies, claiming she doesn't even know the races of the people she hit
- She has since been getting death threats, her family claims, and had to have a police presence outside her Howard Beach, Queens home for a week afterwards
- Dominique says she now has PTSD and is seeing a therapist
- On Wednesday, Casillo was seen being escorted into the Manhattan Criminal Court as protesters outside compared her to Kyle Rittenhouse
- She rejected the court's offer for a plea deal, which would have given her six days of community service and one year license suspension, in favor of a trial
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