SCHENECTADY — Two Schenectady women who admitted beating and robbing an elderly woman last fall were sentenced today in Schenectady County Court.

Tiffany Tolliver, 22, and Dominique Lucas, 21, each pleaded guilty May 28 to one felony count of first-degree robbery as part of separate plea deals. Under terms of the deals, Tolliver was sentenced to 18 years in state prison, while Lucas received a 16-year sentence.

The women admitted to following an 88-year-old woman from the Ocean State Job Lot store off Route 7 to the woman's apartment in Rotterdam on Sept. 8, 2007. The victim spotted the women in the parking lot and thought they were lost, approaching the car to ask if they needed help.

Instead, the women beat her when she refused to give up her pocketbook, and Tolliver went back to the car to get bleach that she threw on the woman in an attempt to blind her and prevent their identification. Prosecutor Ed Moynihan said the victim couldnj't see or hear after the attack and was "left there to die."

The victim "was a kind woman trying to do a kind thing, and you turned around and jump out of the car and attack her," Judge Karen Drago said of the pair as she sentenced Lucas. "... And not only do you beat her, but you also throw bleach at her."

Tolliver and Lucas were arrested a short time later as they left a store where they had used the victim's credit card to make purchases. Police said Tolliver's 2-week-old child was in the car during the attack and her 17-month-old child was left alone in her Albany Street residence. Lucas was eight months' pregnant at the time of the attack.

The elderly victim suffered multiple cuts and bruises to her face and torso. She was in the courtroom this morning, but declined to make a statement, saying through Moynihan that she trusted the justice system.