Parent Robin Sevigny leaves the courthouse yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

PROVIDENCE — Exactly one month after two mothers and four 13-year-old girls were arrested for brawling outside Woonsocket Middle School, another Woonsocket mother was arraigned yesterday morning on a simple assault charge stemming from a fight with her daughter’s teenage cousin.

Speaking softly before Judge Michael A. Higgins in 6th District Court, Robin L. Sevigny, 36, of 26 Bernice Ave., pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge. She was released on $1,000 recognizance and ordered to have no contact with the alleged victim, who is her 14-year-old niece.

Sevigny’s lawyer, Terry Livingston, said after the arraignment that Sevigny is “factually innocent.”

There was “absolutely no contact in a criminal manner,” he said. “She tried to break up the fight.”

Sevigny is married to Paul Sevigny, a retired 30-year veteran of the Woonsocket Police Department’s Juvenile Detective Division, who accompanied her to court yesterday. She was arrested after the fight, which occurred at a school bus stop on South Main Street last Friday. The police said Sevigny’s daughter and niece, both 14 and students at Woonsocket High School, had words on the bus over a boy.

After receiving a text message from her daughter, Sevigny picked up her daughter at the bus stop and confronted the other girl, the police said. The situation escalated and Sevigny allegedly slapped her niece and pushed her to the ground as her daughter ran over from Sevigny’s car. According to police reports, Sevigny held the victim down while her daughter assaulted the girl.

Sevigny and her daughter were arrested. Her daughter’s case has been turned over to the department’s Juvenile Detective Division. Both girls were suspended from school for three days.

Sevigny told the police that she touched the alleged victim only in an attempt to break up the fight and offered to take a lie-detector test after she was arrested, the police said.

Sevigny and her husband declined to comment yesterday on the case, which came on the heels of the Jan. 8 scuffle involving two Woonsocket mothers, their two daughters and two other girls. Both mothers and the four 13-year-old girls were arrested after the fight, which put the beleaguered school — New England’s largest middle school — in the national news and prompted police officials and educators to take a tougher stance on school violence.

The mothers, Maribel Santiago, 34, and Ana Rivera, 44, were charged with simple assault. Santiago pleaded no contest and the case was filed for one year. Rivera pleaded not guilty, and is scheduled to appear in 6th District Court on Monday for a pre-trial conference. The police allege that Rivera drove her daughter to the school to fight one of the other girls.

The police recently investigated another Woonsocket mother who drove a 17-year-old boy to school to fight another teenager last Friday. The 14-year-old victim had argued with the mother’s 15-year-old daughter at the Allan Shawn Feinstein Learning Academy at the Second Avenue School the day before. The 17-year-old is the girl’s boyfriend, the police said.

The mother drove the 17-year-old to pick up her daughter at school when they saw the the 14-year-old boy walking on Olo Street, the police said. Telling the woman to stop the car, the 17-year-old got out and allegedly began punching the boy. The 17-year-old was arrested and charged with simple assault. The mother, who allegedly told the victim he deserved to be attacked, was not charged because she didn’t drive the older boy specifically to attack the victim, the police said.

The rash of violence involving adults and students caused school and police officials to hold a “safety night” Wednesday at the middle school to tell concerned parents what officials are doing to keep their kids safe. At the meeting, parents expressed frustration with the students who cause the most disruptions and with parents who are setting a bad example by joining in the fights. Poor parenting plays a role in the students’ behavior, they said.

Police Chief Michael L.A. Houle called those students “the 5-percenters” — a minority of students who cause the majority of the problems.

“We want you to arrest these kids … we want them gone,” said one mother.

Houle noted that the parents of troublemaking students did not attend the meeting. Only about a dozen parents of the 1,500 students who attend the school were present. Houle assured parents that he will have words with the “5-percenters’ ” parents even if it’s at the station after their children are arrested.

“I guarantee you we’re going to talk,” he said.

khayes@projo.com