Brooklyn DA Admits Prosecutor Didn't Follow Up

After the tragic murder of Natasha Ramen last week, questions were raised about the conduct of the Brooklyn DA's office. Last Friday, Ramen's throat was slashed, allegedly by Hemant Megnath in an attempt to prevent her from testifying that he had raped her. Megnath had previously harassed and threatened Ramen and her family to the point that they told the police in Queens.

Yesterday, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes admitted that his office failed to alert the judge, saying, "Why this information was not relayed to Judge [John] Walsh is of concern, but this assistant is superbly qualified, experienced and a dedicated lawyer in my office. It was an honest mistake." He described the assistant district attorney, Caryn Teitelman, as being “superbly qualified, experienced and dedicated.” From the Times:

In October, relatives of Ms. Ramen told the police that Mr. Megnath had threatened to kill her and her husband. He was arrested on charges of aggravated harassment, under the jurisdiction of Queens prosecutors, but the Ramen family did not press charges.

Ms. Teitelman, who was standing in for another assistant district attorney on the rape case in Brooklyn, was told of the harassment arrest in Queens, Mr. Hynes said in his statement. Prosecutors routinely use such information to argue for an increase in bail or other conditions to restrain the defendant. For reasons Mr. Hynes did not explain, Ms. Teitelman did not tell Judge Walsh about the harassment arrest.

Hynes also said, "To attempt to blame her [Teitelman] is almost as ludicrous as trying to lay the blame on Ms. Ramen's family, who refused to cooperate in the Queens prosecution." Which naturally made Ramen's family upset. Her husband, Leonard Ramen, said that his parents didn't want to press charges because Megnath threatened to kill him (friends say they were worried because they are illegal immigrants): "Everybody's pointing fingers at each other, [but] no one's trying to correct it...It shouldn't be, 'Oh, do you want to press charges?' It should be, 'You're going in jail.'" Megnath's lawyer, though, tells the Times, "I think the judge and the people in Brooklyn acted appropriately.”

And, for a period, Leonard Ramen was also ordered to stay from his wife, after he assaulted her last fall, though it seems they later reconciled.

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By Jen Chung in News on March 23, 2007 12:59 PM

Comments [rss]

nick

jen chung where'd you go?

sp

to bad for her that she wasn't white, an actress or socialite, and living in manhattan.

Justice

The cops and the da dropped the ball.

Typical.

okki

not amused: does that bring their daughter back?

Not amused

There's an old saying "What comes around , Goes around " . (Use your own definition)The family will sue the city and they will in turn settle out of court and the whole mess will be done with .

Lexiphane

When the family decided not to press charges of harrassment, the decision was based partly on the fact that Megnath was threatening to kill them. That seems like an ideal situation for a prosecutor to step up and mention to the judge the full context surrounding the case for higher or revoked bail. I'm sure everyone in the DA's office is very busy, but Teitelman seems to have dropped the ball on this one.

Andrew

No John Liu press release? Oh, that's right... it involved people of Indian decent.

That gets a big John Liu ignore.

Correction

Samantha T, while the police can make an arrest without the victim's consent, prosecuting a case without the victim's cooperation is virtually impossible, especially when the charges are harassment. Without the victim available to testify about the harassing remarks made by the defendant, there's no shot of a conviction and it would be borderline unethical for the DA's office to go forward with the case knowing full well that it will never win at trial.

Samantha T

""Everybody's pointing fingers at each other, [but] no one's trying to correct it...It shouldn't be, 'Oh, do you want to press charges?' It should be, 'You're going in jail.'"

I completely agree - what is up with putting the onus on the victim to enforce the law? The whole "pressing charges" thing is a myth. Once the police know about a crime, they have full discretion to arrest the person, regardless of whether the victim wants them to or not. People often use the "pressing charges" thing with respect to victims of domestic violence to justify why the police don't arrest abusers. It's total crap.