Latest update January 20th, 2025 3:00 AM
Private detective convicted of raping, framing Guyanese ex-girlfriend
Queens, New York – A New York private detective was found guilty Nov. 23 of raping his former girlfriend
Seemona Sumasar
and then framing her in a series of armed robberies which resulted in her spending seven months in jail.
Following a four-week trial, a jury in state Supreme Court in Queens, New York, found Jerry Ramrattan guilty of raping Seemona Sumasar on March 8, 2009. Ramrattan was also found guilty of perjury, conspiracy, tampering with a witness, and falsely reporting an incident. He faces more than 25 years in prison.
Sentencing has been set for January 4, 2012. Ramrattan will remain incarcerated at Rikers Island, New York city’s main jail complex, until sentencing, and will then be moved to a state prison, a spokeswoman from the Queens County District Attorney’s office told India-West.
“The jury in this case has righted a terrible wrong and justice has finally been served for the victim,” said Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown in a press statement.
Sumasar, a former analyst with Morgan Stanley and a restaurant owner, “was first forcibly raped by the defendant and then saw her life turn into a hellish nightmare as he hatched an intricate and sinister plot to extract vengeance against her by having her falsely accused of committing armed robberies,” said Brown.
“His actions resulted in a single mother of a young child being incarcerated for more than seven months as she awaited trial and the frightening prospect of going to prison if convicted of the trumped-up charges,” he said, noting that Sumasar has faced serious financial hardships through her ordeal.
According to local news reports and court documents, Sumasar, 36, and Ramrattan, 39, began their relationship in 2006. Ramrattan began living at Sumasar’s home later that year, and continued living in the basement after the relationship ended in 2009.
On the afternoon of March 8, 2009, Ramrattan and Sumasar were having an argument, when the armed private eye, restrained her, covered her mouth with duct tape and dragged her downstairs to his apartment where he forcibly raped her.
Following his arrest three days later, Ramrattan hatched an elaborate plot to frame Sumasar in a series of false armed robberies that resulted in her arrest. Three alleged robbery victims were coerced by Ramrattan – who offered them money or threatened deportation – to participate in the scheme.
Jerry Ramrattan
The trio, Rajiv Mohanlal, Terrell Lovell and Luz Johnson, each called police over the course of a year, saying they had been robbed at gunpoint by an Indian woman matching Sumasar’s description.
Sumasar was arrested in May 2010, and later indicted by a grand jury on two counts of armed robbery. She spent the next seven months in jail because she could not post the $1 million bail.
The plot was finally unraveled last December when – days before Sumasar’s trial was due to begin – Mohanlal confessed to his false allegations and gave police Ramrattan’s old cell phone number, which resulted in the discovery of several phone calls from Ramrattan to Mohanlal, Lovell and Johnson. Lovell and Johnson have since been charged with perjury.
While she was in jail, Sumasar continued to assert her innocence, providing security camera photos of her playing cards at a Connecticut casino on one of the evenings that an alleged robbery had taken place.
Sumasar has suffered extensive financial hardships and has lost her home to foreclosure, said her attorney Nick Brustin in an interview with “The Today Show” on NBC. Brustin said he plans to file a civil suit against Ramrattan.
Sumasar is the daughter of an Indian taxi company owner from Guyana, while Ramrattan hails from Trinidad.(India-West)
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