Woman pleads no contest in video assault of elderly Vietnam vet

The 27-year-old woman who attacked a 73-year-old Vietnam War veteran outside a southeast Fresno auto parts store – a brutal altercation captured by the store’s surveillance video system – has pleaded no contest to attempted robbery in Fresno County Superior Court.

Shvonna Alexander will be sentenced on Dec. 7.

The attempted robbery charge carries up three years in prison, prosecutor Tim Donovan said Wednesday.

Police said Victor Bejarano was walking into the AutoZone store on Belmont Avenue at Cedar Avenue in southeast Fresno on Oct. 10 when he was confronted by Alexander. She demanded his wallet, but Bejarano refused to give it up. She then attacked the Vietnam veteran.

The attack began in the parking lot, continued inside the store, then returned to the parking lot. She tried several times to put Bejarano in a headlock. After a witness told Alexander the police had been called, she left in her vehicle.

The store’s surveillance system recorded the attack, and once the video was released to the public, Crime Stoppers tips led to Alexander’s arrest on Oct. 23.

Alexander, who remains in the Fresno County Jail, reportedly told police: “I was just defending myself from that old man.”

In June 2014, Alexander pleaded no contest in Fresno County Superior Court to misdemeanor theft. As part of her probation, she was told to enroll in a theft-diversion program and ordered to stay away from Vons stores, court records show. She also has a criminal record dating to 2010 in Oklahoma, where she and an accomplice were arrested in a string of burglaries, the Tulsa World reported.

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 2:32 PM with the headline "Woman pleads no contest in video assault of elderly Vietnam vet."