Listen to the episode here :

An Ex From Hell

 

When New York financial analyst and restaurant owner Seemona Sumasar began chatting with a charismatic police detective in her Queens restaurant, her life would never be the same.

Seemona was born in Guyana and relocated to the U.S. with her family when she was a child. They settled in Queens, New York. Seemona would go on to work on Wall Street and eventually open a Golden Krust restaurant franchise in Queens. In the late 1990s, she had a daughter named Chiara and raised her as a single mother with primary custody.

It was 2006 when Seemona began dating Jerry Ramrattan. He was charming and was always there to lend a hand.

Jerry Ramrattan lived in Queens and told Seemona that he was a police detective for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

He was usually dressed in a suit with a bulletproof vest underneath and always carried a badge and gun. On one occasion, Seemona accompanied Jerry to the Brooklyn DA’s office, where he seemed to know everyone. There, he introduced her to an individual he referred to as his boss. Initially, she had no reason to doubt his occupation; however, it didn’t take long for Seemona to feel like something was off with her new beau. Though he looked the part, she said he rarely ever went out to work. On top of that, she noticed that he was a superfan of crime shows like Law & Order.

She later described him as a compulsive liar, telling him at one point, “You tell so many lies I think you actually believe what you're saying.”

In 2008, Seemona said answered her phone and on the other end was a woman claiming to be Jerry Ramrattan’s wife. She explained that they were married and had children together. When Seemona confronted Jerry about the phone call, he denied it before later confessing that it was true.

Seemona would later find out that he was a confidential informant for the Brooklyn DA’s Office, not a police officer.

Shocked that she had been dating a man who had been lying to her to such an extreme, Seemona broke up with him and asked him to leave her home- Jerry did not respond well.

Seemona later alleged that Jerry Ramrattan attacked and assaulted her in the home in March 2009, saying that he bound her with duct tape and dragged her into the basement, where he raped her.

She said that after he left, she was able to call 911 for help, and Jerry Ramrattan was consequently arrested and charged with impersonating an officer and rape.

He was released on bail and then began constructing what prosecutors later described as an elaborate scheme to frame Seemona.

In 2010, police in both Queens and Nassau County began receiving reports from individuals claiming to have been held at gunpoint and robbed by a male and female duo dressed as police officers. They described the physical attributes of both Seemona and her vehicle, as well as her license plate number, in their reports.

Police were ultimately led to Seemona and, in May 2010, arrested her on multiple charges including impersonating a police officer, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm.

Unable to pay $1 million in bail, Seemona was held in Nassau County jail for seven months. Meanwhile, her daughter was left without her primary parent and her business without its owner.

Despite having an alibi for the time of the crimes, including phone records to support it, Seemona was unable to convince officers that she had not committed the armed robberies until an ex-girlfriend of Jerry Ramrattan came forward and told police that he had intentionally framed Seemona.

By December 2010, all charges against her were dropped before the case went to trial.

Jerry Ramrattan was arrested and charged with first-degree rape, as well as falsely reporting an incident, tampering with a witness, perjury, and conspiracy.

Prosecutors said that Ramrattan showed photographs of Seemona Sumasar and her vehicle to individuals he coached to act as victims. The Houston Chronicle reported that one of the individuals was an undocumented immigrant from Trinidad who made a false claim to police that he had been handcuffed to a radiator by an Indian woman in a police uniform and robbed of several hundred dollars. According to prosecutors, the man had been promised a special visa issued to victims of violent crimes in exchange for the report.

In July 2011, The Houston Chronicle reported that even Ramrattan’s mother said her son was innocent and that he was being framed by Seemona Sumasar.

Ramrattan was found guilty by a jury in 2011 and sentenced to 32 years in prison in early 2012.

Leaving the courthouse in 2011, Seemona said:

“How do you do that to somebody? How do you live with yourself? Do I hate him? No. It makes me bitter and I don’t want to be bitter. It's over.”

Seemona went on to sue the police detectives involved in her arrest, along with Nassau County. She won $2 million in a settlement.

Listen to the episode here :

An Ex From Hell

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