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EZ Jet Boss petitions Court against US Marshalls
…says constitutional rights being violated
By Gary Eleazar
Embattled EZ Jet boss, Sonny Ramdeo, is petitioning the US Court to take intervening action to stop the continued
EZ Jet Boss,
Sonny Ramdeo
violation of his constitutional rights.
Ramdeo who has been incarcerated at the Palm Beach County Jail for the past 15 months, alleges that on February 24 last, he was taken to the St Lucie Country Jail an hour and a half away from the court and his attorney.
According to Ramdeo, in his petition to the Court, prior to his move, he informed the Marshalls that he had a hearing in early March but the Marshalls insisted that he be moved.
Ramdeo has since informed the court that when he was moved, the Marshalls took possession of his legal paperwork and refused to permit him to take it with him. He claimed that this was “depriving him of the right to have his legal paperwork in preparing for the upcoming hearing.”
He said that the day before his hearing the Marshalls uplifted him and nine other inmates and transferred them back to the Palm Beach County Jail where he was deprived of meals for an extended period of time and was only placed in a cell at three in the morning.
Ramdeo said that due to the deprivation of his legal paperwork, lack of sleep and lack of consultation with his counsel, he was unprepared for the hearing.
Ramdeo says that he was not given back his legal paperwork until the following month.
He said too that in May, he was again removed from the Palm Beach County Jail and again the Marshalls refused to transport his legal paperwork and further instructed the jail to destroy it after 30 days.
His legal paperwork includes filings in support of a plea withdrawal motion with supporting evidence.
Ramdeo charged that he had submitted to the Palm Beach County Jail Law Library several critical documents to be copied for him but the Marshalls refused to retrieve it for him.
He also documented in his petition to the court that when the Marshalls took him there, they informed that he was “making trouble in Palm Beach.”
According to Ramdeo, this was the first time he heard of any such allegation and further the Marshalls did not provide any details of what they were talking about.
In fact, Ramdeo has informed the Court that if this was the case, disciplinary measures would have obtained and this would have been documented but this was not the case.
Ramdeo’s petition states that “the Marshalls clearly are depriving the defendant of his rights to have access to his legal paperwork in preparing an effective defense in his case…Such deprivation can only be held to be prejudicial to the defendant.”
According to the motion, the deprivation of the legal paperwork also deprives him of his constitutional and fundamental rights in adjudicating his case.
As a result, Ramdeo has asked that the Court issue an order for his legal paperwork including what was sourced from the law library to be made available to him, among other requests.
In March of this year the US Government objected to Ramdeo’s attempt to withdraw his guilty plea. The prosecutors argued that Ramdeo lied in his motion and further, that he only attempted to change his plea when he learnt of the length of time he would have to serve in prison.
Ramdeo, who was behind the failed low cost carrier EZjet, was charged in the US with embezzling millions of dollars from the hospital chain he had been employed with.
Ramdeo initially pleaded not guilty, then changed his plea to guilty and in February, filed another motion to withdraw his guilty plea.
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