New York: A New York private detective has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for raping his Indian-origin girlfriend and then implicating her in a series of false armed robberies for which she was wrongly jailed for seven months.
Jerry Ramrattan, 39, of Queens was convicted in November after a four-week jury trial of first-degree rape, perjury, conspiracy, tampering with a witness and falsely reporting incidents in his plot to frame his former girlfriend Seemona Sumasar, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Sumasar, 36, is the daughter of an Indian taxi firm owner from Guyana and had previously worked as a Morgan Stanley analyst.
"The sentence provides a measure of justice for this victim, who survived a nightmarish rape only to be victimised again when she was arrested on robbery charges and sent to jail away from her daughter, away from her business and facing the prospect of many years in prison," Brown said, adding that Ramrattan's actions strike at the very heart of the criminal justice system and must be severely punished.
In handing down the sentence, Justice Richard Buchter said Ramrattan deserved no mercy as he was a "diabolical conniver and sinister manipulator" who had "shamelessly exploited the criminal justice system."
Sumasar said Ramrattan showed no remorse and would have stopped at nothing to destroy her.
"You're evil, you're a sociopath and you need help," she said in court.
According to the trial testimony, Ramrattan continued to live in the basement of Sumasar's house even after their relationship had ended. The two had a heated argument in March 2009, when Ramrattan, who was carrying a silver handgun in his waistband, restrained her with duct tape and dragged her downstairs to his apartment, where he forcibly raped her.
Following his arrest on rape charges a few days later, Ramrattan conspired with three individuals, whom he bribed and threatened, to frame Sumasar in a series of false robbery allegations.
Ramrattan wanted to "destroy her credibility" on the witness stand when he went on trial for the rape.
The individuals reported to the police that their vehicles had been pulled over and that they had been robbed at gunpoint by a male and female dressed as police officers.
In each case, Sumasar was identified as the female robber.
As part of the frame-up, Ramrattan placed a bullet on the ground at the alleged crime scene in Queens and then had one individual tell the police that the female robber had a black handgun which she purportedly "racked" during the robbery, causing a bullet to fall to the ground.
In another instance, Ramrattan showed Sumasar's vehicle to a second individual who then described it to the police.
Based on the false police reports, the three individuals identified Sumasar as the one who had committed the alleged robberies.
As a result of their testimony, Sumasar was charged with robbery.
Since she could not afford a million dollar bail, she had to spend seven months in jail where she later told detectives about her pending rape case against Ramrattan.
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