Taylor Green was sentenced to five years in prison for stabbing a teen in September.
TRENTON - Emotions ran high Friday as a woman was sentenced to five years in prison for stabbing a teen with scissors. The woman's family showed up to voice their support and the victim also spoke.
"Don't make it like she did everything," the woman's stepfather told Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw in Mercer County Superior Court Friday.
Taylor Green, 23 Taylor Green, 23, was sentenced to five years in prison for aggravated assault for a September crime.
Prosecutors say Green and the victim, a teenage girl who was 17-years-old at the time, lived across the street from each other.
Police have said that Green was dating the father of the 17-year-old but that the two broke up before the fight.
Police said Green met the girl in the street and stabbed her in the chest with a pair of scissors before the girl's father disarmed Green and called 911.
Green then smashed out windows of the man's house and walked away from the scene, prosecutors said.
At a hearing Friday prosecutors brought up Green's prior criminal history including another aggravated assault, from 2009.
The victim spoke in court saying that the argument started over a phone she was using that Green wanted back.
"I tried to stay away from her," the victim said. "Now I have permanent scars that I have to live with because of something so small and stupid."
But Green, her mother and her stepfather, who were all present in the courtroom Friday, claimed there was another side to the story.
"They met in the street and it sure wasn't for coffee," Green's mother conceded, but added: "It was mutual."
Green's stepfather claimed the ex-boyfriend and father of the victim was to blame for dating a younger woman and giving her alcohol. He added that Green was also injured in the fight and was not solely at fault.
The stepfather went on to say that his stepdaughter has a problem with substance abuse and that prison won't help.
"The alcohol is what makes her fight," he told Warshaw. "(Green) doesn't need to go to prison. She needs to go to rehab."
In a teary statement before the courtroom Friday, Green said that she was remorseful about the fight but that she, too was a victim.
"I was hurt, too. And injured," she said.
Green's voice broke as she discussed the possibility of living away from her family for nearly five years.
"I'm far away from home," she said. "This is my life here."
Warshaw based the sentencing largely on Green's past offenses, saying that he did not believe Green was provoked.
"I do believe there is a true risk," Warshaw said of whether Green would offend again.
Green will need to serve 85 percent of her sentence - or just over four years - before she is eligible for parole.
Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.