BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Sarah Kreager sat stonefaced in the front row of court as the judge read the verdicts. She put her arm around her longtime boyfriend, Troy Ennis, Tuesday as teenager after teenager was convicted of brutally beating her — breaking two bones in her face — aboard an MTA bus in December.

For the first time in a Baltimore City courtroom, the 26-year-old woman smiled.

“Sarah Kreager and Troy Ennis have been vindicated,” prosecutor Janet Hankin said outside the courthouse. “The allegations made against them are untrue and uncalled for. They have caused an unnecessary rift in the community and I hope now the verdicts are in the community can heal from the hurt and the unnecessary racial tension.”

Baltimore City Juvenile Judge David Young convicted four teens —two females and two males — of first-degree assault in the beating of Kreager and Ennis, 30, on the No. 27 bus Dec. 4. A fifth student, a male, was convicted of second-degree assault against only Ennis.

Kreager and Ennis were quickly escorted out by officers with the state’s attorney’s witness protection program.

Hours earlier Kreager had cried as defense attorneys verbally attacked her, accusing Ennis of using racial slurs and her of starting the fight with the middle school students.

“It wasn’t bad enough she had to be beaten on the bus,” Hankin said. “She was beaten up on closing arguments. Now she had to listen to the fabrications of the defense.”

But defense attorney Garland Sanderson said he was “deeply disappointed.”

“There was absolutely no evidence that supported the decision,” said Sanderson, who represents one boy.

During closing arguments, defense attorneys said Kreager and Ennis began the brawl.

“This is about race,” defense attorney Margaret Desonier said. “African-American children were all telling the same story and nobody would believe them.”

But prosecutor Dawn Jones said it was absurd to think Ennis used a racial slur on a bus packed with 40 black students.

“In that situation, the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan [wouldn’t say] the N-word,” Jones said.

Sentencing is scheduled for April 3.

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com

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