Kiara Colon will be sentenced after a report is prepared about her by the Probation Department.
SPRINGFIELD – A dispute that started over a pet cat allowed to roam in the halls of a Holyoke apartment building resulted in a 20-year-old woman pleading guilty Wednesday to slashing a 33-year-old woman’s face.
Kiara Colon, of Holyoke, pleaded guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury.
Assistant District Attorney Karen Southerland said the victim received stitches for three cuts to her face and has a permanent scar over the bridge of her nose.
Southerland argued to Hampden Superior Court Judge Tina S. Page the sentence for Colon should be two to three years in state prison.
Defense lawyer Jeffrey S. Brown wants Page to give Colon a 2½-year sentence at the Chicopee Women’s Correctional Center with one year to be served and the rest suspended with probation.
Page agreed to postpone sentencing a month while a report is prepared about Colon by the Probation Department.
Brown said Colon has no criminal record and reports she is bipolar.
Southerland said Colon went to visit her father Miguel Colon at his second floor 370 High St. apartment. The victim, who lives on the fourth floor, had seen Miguel Colon’s cat in the hall, a recurrent problem in the building, Southerland said.
The victim yelled down something about the cat, Southerland said, and Kiara Colon began yelling at the woman.
The victim came downstairs, and confronted Colon in the hall outside Miguel Colon’s apartment about why she was yelling.
“The defendant’s father came home as words were being exchanged and he got in between the two females. He tried to deescalate the situation and try to calm his daughter down,” Southerland said.
Shortly after Miguel Colon got in between the two women, Kiara Colon reached around her father and slashed the victim in the chin, forehead and the bridge of the nose.
Colon told police after her arrest she had felt threatened during the incident, Southerland said.