By Rebecca Henely
Seemona Sumasar, the former Far Rockaway resident who was the victim of a complex framing scheme by her ex-boyfriend that put her behind bars in Nassau County for months, is now suing the city, Nassau County and police officers, saying they were negligent in allowing him to get away with it.
Sumasar’s former beau, Jerry Ramrattan, was convicted by a Queens Supreme Court jury last month of raping Sumasar March 8, 2009, and then, after she went to the police, threatening and hiring three others to say she had robbed them in 2009 and 2010 in Queens and Nassau counties as revenge.
The false reports landed Sumasar in a Nassau County jail on charges of robbery, impersonating a police officer and other charges from May to December 2010, as she was unable to pay the $1 million bail.
Ramrattan’s sentencing date is Jan. 4 and he faces more than 25 years in prison on rape, perjury, conspiracy and other charges.
The NYPD and Nassau County did not respond to requests for comment.
Sumasar’s lawyers, from the Manhattan firm Neufeld Sheck & Brustin LLP, filed the suit against the police in Brooklyn federal court Dec. 1. Sumasar’s 13-year-old daughter Chiara McDonald is named as a co-plaintiff.
The suit alleges the police were malicious and negligent when they falsely arrested Sumasar, and accuses the officers of deliberately fabricating evidence and not allowing Sumasar to defend herself. The suit also says the police failed to protect Sumasar from Ramrattan after he was charged with rape and inflicted emotional distress on Sumasar and Chiara through the long imprisonment.
Sumasar’s lawyers characterize Ramrattan’s scheme as “poorly conceived and bumblingly executed” and allege that authorities should have seen through it. When Ramrattan took one man he forced into lying about Sumasar, Rajive Mohanlal, to a street in Queens Village and handcuffed him, Ramrattan left a bullet casing at the scene. The lawyers allege police never checked the handcuffs or bullet casing to determine if Sumasar touched them.
The suit also alleges that Mohanlal and two people Ramrattan paid to claim Sumasar robbed them, Terrell Lovell and Luz Johnson, often gave wrong and contradictory information about Sumasar’s race, appearance and color of her car in reporting the robberies.
Some information they gave also did not make sense, court papers allege. Johnson claimed she was robbed by Sumasar in Inwood, L.I., while traveling from Corona to New Jersey, although there is no route that could take someone from Corona to the Garden State that would pass through Inwood.
Sumasar’s lawyers also accuse police of claiming Sumasar seemed not to care about her daughter upon her arrest in May 2010, even though Sumasar asked multiple times if she could call and reassure her daughter while being questioned, court papers allege.
Sumasar is asking for compensatory damages to be determined at trial, according to court papers.
Reach reporter Rebecca Henely by e-mail at rhenely@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
