Made Others Lie To Have Her Indicted
A Far Rockaway man was sentenced last Wednesday, Jan. 4, to 27 1/3 to 32 years in prison for raping his former girlfriend and then concocting an elaborate scheme implicating her in a series of armed robberies so as to destroy her credibility on the witness stand when he went on trial for the sexual assault.
He was identified by Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown as Jerry Ramrattan 39, of Far Rockaway, who was convicted in November following a four-week jury trial before Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard L. Buchter. The judge sentenced Ramrattan last Wednesday to 25 years in prison for the first-degree rape, 2 1/3 to 7 years for each of the three counts of first-degree perjury, one year for each of the two counts of fifth-degree conspiracy, 1 1/3 to 4 years for one count of third-degree tampering with a witness and one year for each of the three counts of third-degree falsely reporting an incident.
Buchter ordered all of the terms to run concurrent to one another except for ordering the three concurrent terms for perjury to run consecutive to the rape count.
Ramrattan’s plot included having other individuals falsely report the armed robberies, planting fake evidence at an alleged crime scene and having the alleged robbery victims commit perjury before grand juries in Queens and Nassau counties. As a result of his actions, the rape victim was arrested and spent more than seven months behind bars in Nassau County in lieu of $1 million bond.
“Today’s sentence provides a measure of justice for this victim, who survived a nightmarish rape only to be victimized 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 in a statement issued last Wednesday. “The defendant’s actions strike at the very heart of the criminal justice system and must be severely punished.”
According to the trial testimony, although Ramrattan and his girlfriend had ended their relationship, he continued to live in her basement. On the afternoon of Mar. 8, 2009, the two were engaged in a heated verbal dispute in the victim’s upstairs apartment when Ramrattan-who was carrying a silver handgun in his waistband-restrained her with duct tape and dragged her downstairs to his apartment. Once in the cellar, he locked the door and forcibly raped her.
Following his arrest on rape charges on Mar. 11, 2009, Ramrattan conspired separately with three indi-
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