Murder of Nicole duFresne

Fleming appealed on the basis of mental instability and other legal issues raised during the trial. In December 2010, an appeals court found he had been fit for trial and was faking or amplifying his mental illness. The court rebuffed the arguments made on the other legal issues and upheld the conviction. Fleming's accomplices were charged and tried separately.

On February 27, 2007, Servisio Simmons, a cousin of Fleming who took part in the attack, was sentenced to ten years in prison as part of a plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and agreed not to appeal.

On April 26, 2007, Ashley Evans, Fleming's girlfriend and the instigator of the attack, was sentenced to six years in prison as part of a plea deal in which she pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery. Evans reportedly told police that she decided to start a fight with one of the women in the group because they annoyed her by being cheerful and laughing. In court, duFresne's mother forgave Evans but criticized the six-year sentence, telling Evans she will still have most of her life ahead when she emerges from prison, but her daughter is gone forever. Evans, 18 at the time of the attack, was released on parole in 2010.

On October 12, 2006, Fleming was found guilty of first degree murder, two counts of robbery, four counts of attempted robbery, and one count of criminal possession of a weapon. Fleming was on parole for pointing a gun at a truancy officer at the time of duFresne's murder.

On December 11, 2006, Fleming was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 15 years for the robbery committed earlier that night and 15 years for unlawful possession of a weapon.

In the early morning hours of January 27, 2005, duFresne, Sparks, Gibson and Nath were returning home from a night of celebratory drinking. DuFresne had just started a new interim job as a bartender at the Rockwood Music Hall. As duFresne's group was walking down bistro-lined Clinton Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a group of five young men and two girls approached them, "spoiling for a fight and looking for victims." The group had already mugged a man for his leather jacket and menaced a girl at a subway station that same night. According to testimony by another member of the group, Rudy Fleming stated, "I'd like to bang on these people right here."

Nicole duFresne (January 5, 1977 – January 27, 2005) was an American playwright and actress. She was murdered on a sidewalk on Manhattan's Lower East Side when a group of seven teens accosted and mugged a group consisting of duFresne, her fiancé Jeffrey Sparks, her close friend Mary Jane Gibson and Gibson's boyfriend Scott Nath sometime after 3:00 a.m. on January 27, 2005.