ALBANY -- Two of the three former University at Albany students accused of fabricating a racially charged attack on a CDTA bus last year are scheduled to stand trial Monday.

A still from a security camera video showing an assault on an Albany bus.

The trial, in which the Albany County district attorney's office aims to prove the women assaulted their fellow students and then falsely reported themselves as the victims, is scheduled for 9 a.m. in Albany County Court. Judge Roger McDonough will preside.

Last year, the attack drew national attention after Asha Burwell, a black UAlbany student, took to Twitter on the morning of Jan. 30, 2016, to detail a series of harrowing events she said took place hours earlier: She and her friends, Ariel Agudio and Alexis Briggs, who are also black, got jumped on a bus by a group of white students hurling racial slurs, bystanders watched without helping, and when she and her friends called police, they didn't seem to care.

But was that what really went down?

The district attorney's office doesn't think so, and neither does the university, which expelled Burwell and Agudio and suspended Briggs, who was deemed less culpable.

Witness testimony and surveillance video that captured part of the fight played a big role in the DA's decision to pursue charges. Grainy footage showed a chaotic fight in which the only physical blows came from the women themselves. Supporters of the women, however, point out that the video doesn't capture the full fight and their blows could have been defensive.

District Attorney David Soares, unmoved, proposed a plea deal: community service in exchange for a public apology. Briggs was the only one to accept, and in a tearful apology in court last June said she should have "done more to correct the narrative and truthfully explain" what happened that night.

Agudio and Burwell have stuck by their story, and will be tried on charges of assault, attempted assault and falsely reporting an incident.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, the claims spread on social media, prompting then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to chime in on Twitter with a statement of support for the women. The National Congress of Black Women sponsored a rally dubbed #defendblackgirlsualbany that drew more than 100 students to the campus fountain.

But when CDTA video was released to the public, the court of public opinion quickly split, with some standing by the women's claims and others expressing outrage at what suddenly seemed like a hoax.

Agudio, who was halfway through her junior year as the saga unfolded, claimed in a lawsuit that the turn of events humiliated the university and prompted officials to make up their mind before an investigation concluded anything concrete. The suit alleges the process the university used to expel her was unfair and unconstitutional.

--By Bethany Bump, Times Union, Albany, N.Y.