Overview
- Prosecutors charged Arielle Raso with multiple counts including seven counts each of assault and battery, civil‑rights violations and threatening to commit a crime plus one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a child under 14, and charged Gregory Raso with seven counts each of assault and battery and civil‑rights violations plus one weapons-related assault count.
- Both defendants pleaded not guilty at arraignment, were released on $750 bail with orders to stay away from Tertulia’s Cafe and the alleged victims, and are due back in court for a pretrial hearing on July 28.
- Authorities say the incident included racial slurs, commands to 'get out of this country,' death threats, breaking off and throwing a piece of a shared fence that struck a child, and spraying diners with a hose, and officers say they heard Arielle Raso admit to spraying the group.
- The Rasos dispute key details in the charges; defense lawyers and family members told police that patrons were breaking the fence and that the couple sprayed water in retaliation while denying the use of racial slurs.
- The confrontation began as a noise complaint near Tertulia’s Cafe and escalated hours later into the incident now under criminal and civil‑rights investigation, a development that city prosecutors say raises public‑safety and community tensions and that will be tested at the upcoming pretrial proceedings.