Two people who assaulted a woman along a busy roadside in Jenkintown have been sentenced to prison after previously pleading guilty to charges stemming from the December 2021 incident.
Charles Woodson, 38, and September Wingfield, 27, were seen on video beating the woman outside of her car until she was left unconscious, police said. The incident happened around 10 a.m. on Dec. 16 near the intersection of Old York and Rydal roads.
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Woodson was sentenced to 7 1/2 to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to a felony charge of aggravated assault. Wingfield was sentenced to 3 to 6 years in prison after pleading guilty to the same charge.
What led to the initial conflict on the road remains unclear, but investigators say the situation turned violent after the assault victim left her car and argued with Woodson and Wingfield. Their pickup truck was stopped in traffic behind the woman's vehicle.
After the woman threw a coffee cup toward the truck, Wingfield got out and began to punch the woman as she attempted to return to her car, police said.
Both cars were stuck in a construction zone along Old York Road, preventing the victim from leaving the area. There were cars in front of her and cones blocking the lane beside her.
Witnesses who saw the attack unfold called police to the scene. One onlooker filmed Wingfield as she pummeled the woman outside her car. Woodson encouraged Wingfield and then joined in by kicking the woman when she fell to the ground, police said.
Woodson and Wingfield fled the scene by driving the truck onto the sidewalk to get around traffic. The woman was hospitalized after the beating.
Authorities said the beating was not justified by the woman throwing a coffee cup.
“It was an awful beating of a victim. We need people to know that this kind of conduct isn’t going to be tolerated," Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele told Main Line Media News. "You can’t explode on somebody and assault them in this kind of way. I argued for a state prison sentence to reflect the severity of what they did.”
Steele said Woodson and Wingfield were identified and later arrested after police received tips from the public. The pickup truck did not have a license plate at the time of the incident.
"Without people providing us with information this could have been one of those unsolved incidents,” Steele said. “We’re at a point where this isn’t going to be tolerated and people don’t want this type of behavior going on in our neighborhoods.”