Shakopee Couple Sentenced in Limo Driver Assault

A Shakopee couple charged with assaulting a limousine driver after he told one of them he couldn’t smoke in the vehicle has been sentenced to time in a Hennepin County workhouse.

Elizabeth Tasinnasapewin Brewer, 24, and Chevis James Miller, 25, who live at the same address in Shakopee, were initially charged with felony third-degree assault resulting in substantial bodily harm and gross misdemeanor stalking with intent to injure.

Both Brewer and Miller each pleaded guilty to one count of stalking with intent to injure in February and had the felony charges dismissed as part of plea agreements.

Each were sentenced in April to a year in the workhouse, with 285 days suspended. Each will be on supervised probation for two years, and will have the option to work in the Sentence to Serve program in lieu of 20 days in the workhouse. The program gives convicted offenders the opportunity to work in community service for credit.

They will also have to pay restitution and fines adding up to approximately $3000.

The incident took place on Nov. 19 at about 2:30 a.m. outside the Downtown Cabaret Club in Minneapolis.

A limousine driver told police he was flagged down outside the club by a security guard, who asked him to take four people home. Miller got into the front passenger seat, and two men and Brewer got into the back of the limo, according to the complaint.

As soon as Miller sat down, he began swearing and grabbed the driver’s lighter, according to the complaint. The driver took the lighter and told Miller that he wasn’t allowed to smoke in the car, at which point Miller yelled, “Go [expletive] yourself, or I’m going to kick your [expletive],” according to the complaint.

The other three passengers became “verbally abusive” toward the driver, who stopped the car, told them to get out and got out himself. While he was standing outside the limo, one of the four punched him in the head from behind, and then all four jumped on him and “repeatedly punched him,” and Brewer scratched his face and eyes, the complaint charges.

Security guards from the Downtown Cabaret Club intervened and pulled the four off the driver. The four were put into a taxi, and the driver took himself to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with an orbital bone fracture in his eye and cuts and abrasions on his face, the complaint says.

A security guard at the Downtown Cabaret Club told police that the four patrons were drunk inside the club, began “causing trouble” and had to be escorted out. He said he went back inside the club, and when he came back out a few minutes later he saw the four assaulting the driver.

The security guard told police that he heard Brewer say, “I cracked him one,” according to the complaint.

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