Worst Ex Ever (2024) s01e02 Episode Script

[tense music playing]
[glitchy audio]
[man] Emotions, especially with exes,
bring out the absolute worst in people.
[911 operator speaking]
[woman speaking, sobbing]
I've seen instances where exes
kill each other.
[911 operator speaking]
[woman speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
But as far as this elaborate plot,
it was just gut-wrenching.
[woman speaking]
Horrible. Plain and simple.
[glitchy audio]
[gentle music playing]
[woman] In 2006, I was a financial advisor
with Morgan Stanley
and opening a restaurant at the same time.
I was always busy.
There was always something I was doing,
and it it seems like
that's all I knew how to do.
Work, work, work.
My family are all from Guyana,
which is in South America.
I came to the US
when I was about 11 years old.
It was my parents, my brother, my sister.
I'm the oldest of three.
When I was growing up in Long Island,
we basically grew up in the same house,
and we lived there for years until
I purchased the house from my parents.
In my mind, that house,
it was always going to be mine,
I guess, or in the family type of thing.
[calm music playing]
I saw my dad do so much.
My dad worked for Steinway piano company,
and he also had his own business.
He had a taxi company.
So in my mind,
I always wanted to have my own business.
After school, I first worked
for a broker on Wall Street.
And I learned fast and moved up fast.
I used to work ridiculous hours.
After a couple of years
that I was working there,
I thought I had enough time to try to have
my own restaurant, both simultaneously.
Got all my savings
and everything together.
Finally decided on a Golden Krust.
Golden Krust is a franchise
that serves Jamaican cuisine.
Growing up, I ate that food a lot.
I knew about that cuisine
and even had experience
in cooking the food and everything.
[music fades]
[pensive music playing]
I was very busy.
I worked x amount of hours
at Morgan Stanley.
When I was off from there,
I'm at the restaurant
trying to get everything up and running,
permits and whatnot.
And taking care of Chiara
at the same time.
I have the most amazing daughter.
Chiara's sweet, honest.
She's just the best thing
that ever happened to me.
It amazed me how much
she knows or she sensed,
and she's always been like that.
It was a lot of work, but at the time,
I just wanted to just do so much.
So I wasn't seeing anyone for quite a bit
because I've been adamant
that I was never going to get married.
That's not something that
I want to sacrifice, my freedom.
So that conversation
I dodged at all times.
I was supposed to open
in the beginning of March of 2006.
[melancholy music playing]
And my dad
died.
He actually committed suicide.
[chokes up] So it was tough.
After that happened, I, um
I pushed back the opening
of the restaurant
till after all the prayers
and everything was done
and gave myself enough time.
So it was opened
in the very last week of March.
[ominous music playing]
A few months after the restaurant opened
is when I met Jerry.
[gentle guitar music playing]
He came by the restaurant.
He purchased food
and struck up a conversation with me.
He was wearing a suit and he had
a holster, and he had a gun on the side.
He told me he was a cop and a detective
for the Brooklyn DA's office,
and he did consulting work,
which which was conveniently
right down the street
from where my restaurant is.
So in the day, he could pop by anytime.
He pointed out that
my cameras were positioned wrong.
And he volunteered
to stop by during the week
to look at my camera system,
which I thought was amazing. You know?
That's that's what good people do.
He showed up
just to do random things for me.
If it's to just take my car
to the car wash,
little things like that
to make my life on a daily basis easier.
And then, I guess we became friends.
We were going out,
maybe a movie here or there
or whatever free time that I had,
which I had not much of.
I was seeing a lot more of him.
By somewhere in 2007,
we were we were dating. Yeah.
[woman] Seemona is my dad's sister.
I was close to Auntie Seemona.
I worked at her restaurant with her.
The family's overall impression of Jerry,
we all kind of looked up to him in a sense
because, you know, he was this guy
that worked for the NYPD.
He showed us his gun before.
He used to always have it with him.
And then, like,
we always thought he was so cool.
Just a cool guy. He was just a cool guy.
The way he talks, walks.
And we liked him.
And he cared for Seemona.
Jerry used to be in the restaurant,
doing things and whatever.
So to tell you the truth,
I was so happy for her.
I'd say, "You know, at least
you have somebody to help around."
He just fit himself right there.
[Seemona] As far as my family goes,
I think they were worried about me,
as me being alone and for my safety.
I was out and about late at night,
it's a cash business,
and they saw him as this cop,
that he was the one
to protect me in a way.
I didn't really introduce
Chiara to him at all.
Because he was around the restaurant.
Jerry was there so much,
and Chiara never really questioned
anything about him.
[gentle music playing]
Although I sensed that
she didn't care for him very much.
Jerry's mother was living with him.
So Jerry started
to spend a lot of time at my house.
First, it would start as get me home safe,
but then he would stay over.
Timing was convenient as well.
I think he was probably the only person,
you know, I I could talk to about my dad
because my dad passed the way he passed.
It's not easy
to have that conversation with family.
[chokes up] I knew
I was angry all the time.
Because I didn't understand
that that my dad would do
something like that.
And there weren't anybody to talk to
except for him.
It was one of the reasons
why we became so close.
[tense music playing]
[phone ringing]
While I was working at the restaurant,
this phone call came in
[sighs]
just random middle of the day.
I had a, like, a little office
in the basement at the restaurant.
I took the call.
This girl, she asked me
if I'm such and such,
and I said, "Yes,"
and she said, "Well, I have something
to tell you. Are you sitting down?"
And I was like, "Okay."
She said, "You're not going to like
what I'm going to tell you."
"Jerry's been lying to you."
She said that she was married to him,
and she had two kids.
[dramatic sting]
I'm so confused. I'm like, "Oh my God."
I didn't know what to do.
I did ask her about
what he did for a living,
and she said, "Oh well, let me guess."
"Is he telling you
that he's a detective or he's a cop?"
And I'm like, "Yes, both.
So which one is he?"
And she says, "None."
"If you guys are married,
where do you live and where does he live?"
"Because he's spent a lot of time
at my house,
even when I'm not there sometimes."
And she said, "I live in Brooklyn."
"He does live mostly
at his mother's house."
So quite an earful I got from her
to confirm that he was definitely lying.
What's going on in my mind, at that time,
is that, "How are you so stupid?"
I should have known.
When I did actually, finally calm down,
I went back upstairs to the restaurant.
"I got a phone call from your wife."
Jerry said,
"Oh, don't believe a thing she says."
And I'm like,
"Okay, is she or is she not your wife?"
"Like, it's that simple."
"Oh, well, no, but yes."
And then he says
that they were still married
because she had to get a green card.
And I said, "Okay, fine.
People need to get their green card."
"You have to stay married a certain time."
"I get it, but you have two children
with this woman."
Even when I confronted him about
how I knew that he's really not a cop
and he's really not a detective,
he tried to spin it to make it seem
like it's not really what it is.
I made it clear to him
that it's it's over between us,
and I don't have any hard feelings.
I thought that was it.
[producer] I have to ask, why do you
want to be anonymous today?
Well, basically, you know,
I don't want no one to think
I I was associated
with with this this lowlife Jerry,
but I I feel that, you know, everyone has
a right to know another part of the story,
and I just wanted to say my part.
When I first met Jerry,
we both enjoyed going out, having drinks,
of course girls, you know.
And we started hanging out,
becoming friends.
Jerry was married with two kids.
But, you know,
on the side, he would go out.
He had this security company.
So he provides services
to these nightclubs, these bars.
He would make believe
he was a ladies' man.
He'd have all these girls here and there.
I never asked questions, you know.
He was a person that we'd go out,
have drinks, so I don't really care.
The first time I met Seemona,
she opened a new restaurant
at the time, a Golden Krust.
Seemona was
on a different level than Jerry.
She's a successful woman.
She has her own restaurant.
So I guess, you know,
I think that's what drew him to her.
Sometimes he would be all,
"Yeah, I'm gonna see my wife,"
but then other times,
he would go hang out with Seemona.
I don't even know why Seemona
would have wasted time
with someone like Jerry.
Like, seriously, it's Jerry. [laughs]
He would tell me
he's an undercover detective
with the NYPD for years.
Jerry would walk around
with a badge in his wallet,
but you would never see the badge.
You would just see the imprint
of the badge through his wallet.
On one particular occasion,
I had an expired sticker on my plate.
So we're driving,
and the cops pulled me over.
[siren chirps]
While I was talking to the cop, Jerry was
talking to the cop on the passenger side,
and he showed his wallet
with the shield hidden.
And the both cop's like,
"Okay, have a good day,"
without going further into asking me
for a driver's license or anything.
Every time he would see cops,
he would talk to them like he know 'em.
[Seemona] Jerry knew everybody.
I I've heard him
on the phone multiple times
talking to other people
at the DA's office in Brooklyn.
Other people referred to him as a cop,
or he was paid
to be an informant or something.
He did definitely know
some people here or there.
However he's connected to them,
that part I don't know.
[ex-friend] I had a fallout with Jerry
'cause I couldn't really trust him.
He'd go behind my back
and make me look bad in front of people.
Oh, he was a sketchy character.
[tense music playing]
After so many months, I told Jerry
that I needed him to return the keys.
It was a Sunday
around nine o'clock in the morning.
Nobody was in the house.
[knocking at door]
Jerry shows up at my back door,
asking to talk to me.
[door creaking]
I told him through the door,
I didn't open the door,
no, I didn't want to talk to him.
I'm tired. I have a headache.
But he obviously do not know
how to take no for an answer.
He agreed that
he was gonna give me the keys,
and I won't have any trouble with him.
And I'm like, "All right, that's good."
"I'm glad that, you know,
we don't have to fight over this."
So I opened the door.
[door creaks open]
As I turned around,
he pushed me face down.
[ominous music playing]
I heard the damn duct tape.
[ripping]
I heard it.
Now I'm angry,
and I'm cursing, really angry.
So I'm getting loud,
and he just put a piece on my mouth.
Then he's trying to plead
that we could still get back together,
you could take all the time you need.
And I saw Jerry's gun is there.
At one point, he was crying.
He was saying
that he was gonna use the gun on himself.
And in my mind, I'm thinking,
"Is he gonna commit suicide in my house?"
"Is he gonna shoot me
and then do something to himself?"
[music intensifies, fades]
And then he picked me up and, um
[tense music playing]
pulled me down the stairs
through the basement door,
pushed me down on the floor.
I was face down.
And that's when
the rape happened.
[dramatic music plays]
After the rape,
instead of me sitting there crying,
he sat there crying
and begged me
not to say anything or report it.
[tense music playing]
He got up and left,
and I ran upstairs and I locked the door.
And I ran to the front window
to make sure
that I actually see him driving off.
[car engine starts]
I grab the phone. I call the cops.
[dispatcher speaking]
[Seemona speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Seemona speaking]
After I made the 911 call,
the police showed up.
They took me to the hospital right away.
There was a rape kit done there.
[Melanie] When I found out,
I was very shocked.
That's, like, one of the worst things
that could happen to a woman
and then in the way it happened.
He even resorted to using a gun,
a gun that we were all impressed
that he had.
[sputtering] Sick.
[Seemona] Jerry was arrested.
Got put on 150,000-dollar bail,
and his mother paid his bail.
[dramatic sting]
And he was released.
[ambient music playing]
[man] When I was assigned
the case against Jerry Ramrattan
I was working at the
Queens District Attorney's office.
The case came into my office
in March of 2009,
and it came in as a forcible rape case.
I brought Seemona Sumasar,
the complainant,
into my office to meet with her.
She was highly composed
in her conversation with me.
She was able to compellingly, uh, retell
the details of what had happened to her.
All the evidence that we had at that point
seemed to support her account,
as opposed to contradict it.
And we had a DNA match
between Jerry Ramrattan
and the swab taken from Ms. Sumasar.
Seemona came across very credibly.
So it was a case
that I felt very comfortable prosecuting.
The case was presented to the grand jury.
We secured an indictment
against the defendant.
And, we were at that point,
we were waiting for the trial to launch.
[Seemona] I would get visits
from random people that we knew
or mutual friends or some friend of his.
His mother called me.
They were pleading for him,
asking me to drop the charges against him.
But I I I knew he he he sent them.
It was obvious.
I did get a restraining order,
and then the calls stopped.
I remember Frank the ADA calling me,
telling me that by August of 2010,
we should be having
some hearings for trial.
I remember thinking
the sooner I get a trial out of this,
the sooner some decision is made.
It's gonna be over.
There's no way that he's gonna go to trial
and get off of this. There's no way.
[tense music playing]
I think it was a Friday.
I was working at the restaurant.
A friend asked me
to prepare a fish dish for him
and drop it off at his work,
which was just a few blocks away.
I was pulling up right in front of, um,
the school where he worked.
As I'm pulling up, I hear sirens.
[siren wailing]
Of course, I didn't think it was for me.
So I thought I was safe.
But it was for me.
I was told to step out of the car.
Did I run a stoplight? Did I signal?
I just stepped out of the car
because I'm still thinking
this is a big mistake.
Let me just do what they want,
and handcuffs go on.
They just escort me to another vehicle,
and they started to drive
towards Long Island.
At that point I'm like,
"Why are we going to Long Island?"
And they were like,
"When we get there, you'll understand."
[music fades]
I get to the precinct.
I was in the interrogation room
with Detective Charles and Detective Nill.
Do I have anything to confess?
Do I have anything to say?
And I said, "No. Like, clearly,
you made a mistake. I shouldn't be here."
They are like, if I tell them now,
it's going to be much easier later on.
"Did you think that I did something?"
"I didn't do anything,
so I'm not thinking like that."
"You know exactly what you did."
[dramatic sting]
I was pleading to her, like,
"Why can't you people just tell me
what it is that you think I did,
so I could say yes or no?"
But but nothing.
For hours it went by.
At one point,
Detective Charles brought a file,
and it was Jerry's picture in it.
And I ask, "Does this
have something to do with Jerry?"
"If if you think I did something,
then he's behind it. I didn't do it."
And she brushed that off like,
"No, this has nothing to do with him."
[gentle music playing]
[woman] I worked for
the New York City Police Department
in the division of
the Police Impersonations unit.
I was working two crimes
that happened in Queens
within the NYPD jurisdiction.
The cases were
police impersonation robbery cases.
Victims were giving the description
as one female committing these crimes.
We received a call from Nassau County.
They had a pattern
similar to our pattern in Queens.
I was told,
"We just arrested this person."
"And we believe that this is the same
perpetrator that NYPD was looking for."
[tense music playing]
When I went to
the Fourth Precinct in Nassau County,
Detective Charles showed me a photo array.
She said the complainant picked her out.
I asked Detective Charles,
"Do you want to come inside with me?"
She says, "No, I don't need to."
I said, "Okay," so I went in there myself.
[tense music playing]
During the interrogation,
I had no idea what it is
that I was being accused and charged with.
By the time Marisa came,
it was it was late, and I was worn out.
Like I was I was done.
I didn't know what else to say.
[Marisa] I could see that she was crying.
I explained to her the two crimes
that happened in Queens.
[Seemona] Marisa,
she told me about an incident
that happened seven months ago
or something like that.
Impersonation of a cop
and robbery at gunpoint.
That's the two things
that stuck out to me.
What I'm thinking at that point
is impersonating a cop.
That's just like Jerry,
so I figured
Jerry's obviously behind this.
And she starts to tell me about
this person named Jerry
and that she was raped.
And she said, "I'm here because
my ex is setting me up,"
because she was going to trial
for the rape.
That's not what I expected.
From what I could see
and how Seemona was acting
and, of course,
what Seemona was telling me,
Seemona was not being heard.
And plus, the woman was raped,
and I believe her.
And I remember how she held my arm
as she kept saying,
"Please don't leave me here."
That's stuck with me until today.
I still can't
[chokes up] It's still very, um
[takes a deep breath]
There's nothing we could do.
It's not our case.
This is Nassau County.
When Detective Charles
took me out of the room,
I said, "What's gonna happen to her?"
There's a lot of information here
that needs to be investigated.
I could feel by the way
Seemona described the cases
that supposedly she was supposed
to be part of in Nassau County
that she didn't know
what she was talking about.
She just didn't know how to do
She didn't know how to do a robbery.
She didn't know how to stop a car.
I was assured that she would be let free
if she did not do the crime
in Nassau County,
but I knew she definitely did not
do the crime in Queens.
[ominous music playing]
[Seemona] I can't even remember
in between, like,
how I got from point A to point B,
from the precinct to the courthouse,
but it was that same very morning
a few hours later.
I was sure when I saw the judge,
they're gonna realize
they really don't have anything
and they have no choice
but to let me go home.
And then the next thing I remember,
I'm being read charges.
In my mind,
I'm like, uh, "Is this some type of joke?"
Now that you're telling me what I did,
I know I absolutely didn't do that.
None of that even happened.
And then the next thing you know,
I'm being transported
to Nassau County Correctional Facility.
[tense music continues]
[Melanie] I was at the store working.
My cousin comes up to me and he's crying.
All he keeps saying is, "Auntie Seemona."
So I'm like, "What happened?"
He was like, "She was locked up."
[cell door slams]
We closed the store and we left.
[Vijay] Nobody knew what was going on.
All we know is
they have her for armed robbery.
Armed robbery? You gotta be kidding me.
It's like, "What the hell?"
[Seemona] Chiara, I talked to on the phone
on the very first day.
I tried to give Chiara some hope
because she's a child.
"Bear with me. I'm not gonna be home
for a couple of days."
"No matter what, just listen to
your grandmother and your aunt,
and that's it."
I became involved in Seemona's case
at the request of a colleague
who knew me from representing people
who were arrested and convicted
for crimes they had not committed.
Seemona was arrested
on two separate felony complaints.
She faced catastrophic jail time.
I mean, her exposure was immense.
These two armed robberies
carried 16 separate felonies
with a maximum exposure
of up to 50 years in jail.
Seemona's bail was set
at a million dollars.
At that point in time,
the court was well aware that
Seemona could not make
that bail unfortunately,
but it was a very serious charge,
and it reflected that.
[cell door slams shut]
[Seemona] All I thought about at the time,
I keep on playing over and over again,
is that you could rape somebody
and get away with 150,000 dollars bail,
but I'm I'm sitting here,
and I didn't do anything.
And I I can't go home.
Seemona immediately professed that
she was innocent of any of these crimes
and that she was convinced
that Jerry was behind this
and was attempting to frame her,
to discredit her from his upcoming
rape trial in Queens, New York.
As soon as I received the phone call
and I learned what the allegations were,
I immediately thought,
"This is a little surprising."
It didn't compute.
It didn't, uh, match
what I had known of Seemona,
which made me very concerned
for the viability of my prosecution.
At that point,
the rape case was ready for trial.
But the jury in the rape case
could be interpreting her credibility
in a very different light as someone
who is convicted of those robberies,
which could be devastating to our ability
to get a conviction in this case.
And so the rape case
was kind of at a standstill,
while that case played out.
I'd like to say
that I always believe my clients,
but you know, what's so important
is to get down to the facts.
On September 15th, there was a call
by an individual by the name of Rajive,
and he claimed
that he was stopped randomly,
robbed at gunpoint by a dark female,
gold shield around her neck,
and also brandishing a black handgun.
It was investigated by New York PD,
and then the case was dropped.
And then on March 2nd,
1:30 in the morning,
Terrell Lovell claimed
that he was stopped randomly
by a dark Indian woman,
approximately five feet,
gold shield around her neck,
holding a black semi-automatic gun.
Handcuffed him,
steals a hundred dollars US cash,
removes his Movado watch, a pinky ring.
[Lovell speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Lovell speaking]
[Anthony] Terrell was able to give
a partial plate number of the Jeep.
[suspenseful music playing]
On May 19th, 2010, Luz Johnson called 911
and reported a similar gunpoint robbery
in Inwood, New York.
[dispatcher speaking]
[Johnson speaking, sobbing]
[conversation continues]
[Anthony] She also stated that this was
executed by a dark-skinned Indian woman
brandishing a black handgun
with a bulletproof vest, gold shield.
The thief steals allegedly
1,400 dollars from her purse.
In this case, Luz Johnson was able
to give the full plate number,
and the police linked the car
back to Seemona.
And they had conducted a photo array
of Seemona Sumasar,
and Seemona was identified
by both Terrell Lovell and Luz Johnson,
resulting in her arrest.
Now according to Luz Johnson,
she called 911 at 1:30 a.m.
on May 19th in Inwood, New York.
But the problem with her account is that
Seemona's over 100 miles away
at the time of the robbery.
She was at the Mohegan Sun,
so it would be physically impossible
for her to have committed this robbery.
[Seemona] One o'clock in the morning,
if it's really May 19th,
I was in the casino,
and I could prove this easily.
I made phone calls from up there.
Anything you do
at at at a gambling table is recorded.
They have those footage.
I know enough to know that.
[hopeful music playing]
Between the surveillance footage
placing her at the Mohegan Sun,
and, you know, if you make a call,
you're going to ping off of cell towers.
It was just an ironclad alibi
that presented a host of problems
for the prosecution.
[ominous music playing]
Seemona testified
in the grand jury under oath.
Not only was the alibi presented,
proof for the alibi described it.
She was at [laughs] at the Mohegan Sun.
This was her and that,
you know, she was with relatives
and arrived back at her place of business
at 3:00 in the morning.
She couldn't have done this.
But in court, I heard that
the picture wasn't clear enough.
It was grainy.
So that didn't really help me.
And then, even the cell tower
actually picked up
the calls that I made to Chiara.
Apparently, anybody could have had
my phone in Connecticut
while I'm in New York.
So that didn't help me either.
[sighs]
They had enough evidence,
I guess, to put me on trial.
This is when I really started to panic.
I'm absolutely freaking out
because I am trying to figure out
if they have all these things
they concocted, all this falsified stuff,
what what
what is going to be my defense?
A month goes by. Two months goes by.
The strip-downs, the pat-downs.
Every day seems like a lifetime
when you're in a place like that.
I'm repeating myself over and over,
"This is all Jerry's doing
and blah blah blah."
It it doesn't help it doesn't help
because nobody is looking into him.
[Anthony] Seemona testified
before the grand jury
she was being set up by Jerry.
So all you have to do
is cross-reference phone records
of Luz Johnson,
Terrell Lovell, and Jerry Ramrattan
for the cases in Nassau County
to at least be able to verify
if there was any contact
and these people know each other.
I wrote a letter to the DA
and adamantly argued
that I should be entitled
to one year's worth of phone records,
uh, between Johnson, Lovell, and Jerry.
However, in this particular case,
that was denied.
And I was nervous about the reality
that I was not receiving any discovery
to link Jerry
to any of these other individuals,
which was the core of Seemona's defense
and without that, it was troubled.
[ominous music playing]
[ex-friend] One time,
I was looking at the news,
saw that Seemona was locked up
in Nassau County.
I was like, "Oh my God,
this guy's plan actually went through,
and people actually believe his bullshit."
One day, Jerry messaged me,
and he was like,
"We have to hang out.
We have to, you know, catch up."
Jerry did mention that Seemona found out
about his wife and kids.
At the time, Jerry did say
he was trying to get back with his wife,
and Seemona was going to call
Child Services to mess that up.
To be honest, I didn't think
that was something she would do.
Then he went on to say,
"I need you to do me a big favor."
"I need you to call the cops and tell them
that Seemona pulled you over,
and she came up to your car
with a gun and a badge."
At that moment, I'm like,
"Wait a minute. Is he really serious?"
Like, "I'm not gonna do
something like that."
He didn't want to take no for an answer.
I was like, "Oh my God, what the hell's
wrong with this guy?" [laughs]
[tense music playing]
After that,
we went to meet a friend of his.
Rajive.
I overheard them saying something
about the plan to frame Seemona.
That's when I kind of realized
everything was real.
Like, this guy is really crazy.
[laughs] So that kind of spooked me,
and that's what kind of, like,
made me stay away from Jerry after that.
He's, like, someone
you don't wanna mess with.
You don't want to be on their bad side.
[ominous music playing]
We honestly thought
she wasn't gonna get out
because of the way the way
everything was stacked against her.
We just felt like there was nothing
we could do to prove her innocence.
The store didn't last.
I I would say maybe less than a month
after Seemona was arrested.
We just didn't know what to do
because she she handled everything.
[Seemona] I lost everything I worked for.
Every single thing.
When I found out that the house was
gonna to go into foreclosure, I was angry.
It was always going to be mine,
I guess, or in the family type of thing
because that house is the house
I came into this country and I lived in.
[melancholy music playing]
[Vijay] When Seemona was in jail,
you see Chiara looking with the sad eyes.
So we would tell her, "Your mom is okay.
She gonna be out soon."
But she looked so depressed.
You could see it in her face.
But I I did not give up hope.
I did not give up hope.
I said she didn't do it.
One day, she will get out of there.
One day, one day
somebody gonna prove her innocent.
[music fades]
So five months after Seemona
was arrested and was jailed,
I went out with my friends
to a bar in Queens
and Rajive, one of the witnesses
that Jerry paid off,
he walked into the bar.
I greeted Rajive.
I'm like, "Hi. How you doing?"
"You remember me?" You know.
And then he was talking to me
and I'm like, "Listen."
"I know what you did."
"You said that Seemona robbed you,
which we know is a lie."
"You need to to tell the truth."
"And if you don't tell the truth,
I'm gonna go to the DA and tell myself."
So he's like, "Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I feel bad about it."
"I want to tell them the truth too."
"I'll call you,
and we'll take care of it."
Instead of him calling me,
Rajive called the cops.
[tense music playing]
And then a couple days later
[phone rings]
the cops called me.
I went to the precinct
and met with internal affairs.
I told them that
Jerry was the mastermind behind this.
Seemona didn't do anything.
She was innocent,
and Jerry paid off witnesses to lie
and say she robbed them.
The detective did not believe me.
He told me, "No, Seemona was guilty.
Jerry has nothing to do with it."
And I was working alongside with Seemona
and I was threatening the witnesses.
The detective threw the handcuffs on me
and takes me to jail.
[Frank] It took a while,
but eventually we learned that
Rajive reported the conversation to Jerry.
Uh, Jerry then had Rajive Mohanlal file
a police report,
uh, stating that
somebody had tampered with him,
and he had the informant arrested
for tampering with the witness.
Well, when I saw the charges, I was like,
"Oh my God, they're actually charging me
with a felony for something I didn't do?"
[tense music continues]
At that point,
I was trying to defend myself.
I had to hire a lawyer.
Financially, it was draining.
I lost time out of my job.
Emotionally, I was, like, depressed,
and, um, I was angry.
I just had to get
I had to get these charges dropped.
[melancholy music playing]
[Melanie] The last time
I went to see Seemona,
it seemed like she had lost hope too,
that she just didn't know
what to do, what to say.
It was it was just weird.
It was mostly silence.
It took a lot of energy just to be there,
to, like, have a visit.
It was bad. It was bad.
I got sick. I couldn't eat.
I lost a lot of weight.
My skin was breaking out.
My hair was coming out in clumps.
I had ear infections.
Everything was just spiraling down,
one by one.
It was it was hard because he
Jerry took everything, everything
away from me. I lost everything.
And even even even seven months
of being with my child.
[Frank] In December of 2010,
Sophia Lewis walked
into the Nassau DA's office
and asked to speak to somebody
about, um, Seemona's case.
Um, could you tell us, first of all,
how did you come to know Jerry Ramrattan?
I met him in a nightclub in Queens.
[Frank] After you met him, um,
you developed a relationship with him?
Yes.
[Frank] Okay. Is it fair to say you became
boyfriend and girlfriend?
Yes.
[Frank] Okay. Did you hear anything about,
uh, something that Jerry wanted to do?
He said that he wanted to set his ex up
because she had threatened to set him up.
So he was going to get her first
before she sets him up.
She brought to light
the fact that there had been no robbery
and that it had all been staged.
And who was that person
that he got to do it?
He told me it was his cousin Rajive.
And he said,
"This is how it's gonna go down."
"You're gonna say that, you know,
this person robbed him or whatever."
[Frank] Jerry drove Rajive around,
and Sophia Lewis was in the car,
uh, with him at this time.
Jerry asked Rajive to, uh, help him
stage a robbery against an ex-girlfriend.
Uh, Jerry, uh, pulled out his handgun,
put it on his lap,
and told Rajive that, you know,
something could happen to his family
if he didn't help Jerry out.
I think Rajive took it seriously.
Did you remember anything else
he said to Rajive about this at all?
[Sophia] He said before
how it was all gonna go down.
He was gonna have people in Queens
to say they got robbed,
and the last place
that he would want to pick her up
would be Nassau County because
their rules are stricter than Queens.
[Frank] Now what about Terrell Lovell
and Luz Johnson?
- Do you know those two individuals?
- Yes.
[Frank] Jerry offered Terrell Lovell
and Luz Johnson
20,000 dollars to cooperate with him
and stage this robbery.
They were never paid the money.
As the details
of what had happened became clear,
I was stunned at the machinations
that Jerry had gone through
in order to, uh, try to derail
the rape prosecution.
In the first staged robbery,
very cleverly,
there was no license plate given.
It sounds very reasonable.
Rajive was scared.
He doesn't get a license plate.
And then the incident in Nassau
with Terrell Lovell
[Lovell speaking]
[Frank] He got a partial license plate.
By the time of the third incident,
we were much closer to trial,
and I think Jerry knew that,
you know, he had to close the loop.
And so when the fake robbery that was
staged with Luz Johnson occurred
[Johnson speaking, sobbing]
[Frank]you get the full license plate,
and there's no way that the police
couldn't put two and two together
and end up with Seemona.
And so it was actually really devious
and incredibly clever on Jerry's part.
[gentle music playing]
Jerry, at various points,
had been a confidential informant
for a number of different units
within the NYPD.
He knew how the police operated,
he knew how the detectives operated,
and he was able to leverage that knowledge
to make these accusations
look better than they were.
Did Jerry ever say anything else to you
about these false robberies or
No, 'cause after the first two,
I told him I didn't want to know anything.
I told him I didn't want to know anything,
don't tell me anything.
I don't wanna know what you're doing.
And he was pissed off about that.
[Frank] Sophia Lewis was becoming
increasingly fed up with his behavior.
And she deserves a lot of credit
for trying to do the right thing.
[pensive music playing]
[Seemona] I get called down
that I have a visitor.
I thought that somebody was coming there
to tell me something terrible happened
because no family member
were scheduled to visit me.
But it ended up being Tony,
and he came with good news.
And he told me I was gonna be released.
You know, here we are,
preparing for the trial of her lifetime,
and all the charges were being dropped.
It's oh my God. Thank you
that the truth has finally come out.
[Seemona] I had never had
so much energy in my life,
jumping up and down for joy.
He had Chiara there,
so I got to see her right away.
Didn't have to wait.
If she wasn't as strong as she was
throughout the entire seven months,
I don't think I would have made it.
So yeah, I can't think of a better day.
[music fades]
[gentle music playing]
[Melanie] The first time we saw Seemona
was really emotional.
It was a lot of crying.
We we just wanted
to celebrate everything.
We just wanted to make a big deal.
If she was going to go eat a meal,
we wanted to make it a big deal.
It was it was it was great.
She was framed.
A Long Island woman spent months in jail
for a crime she did not commit,
and now police are finally admitting
that she was set up by her ex-boyfriend.
[tense percussive music playing]
[Frank] Once the conspiracy unraveled,
the first thing to do is
build the case against Jerry.
We were able to flip
the three co-conspirators,
Rajive Mohanlal, Terrell Lovell,
and Luz Johnson,
and use them as witnesses
to testify against Jerry.
[Anthony] They gave statements
that there were, in fact, no robberies,
that Jerry had coached them,
that Jerry had shown them
photographs of Seemona
so that they could identify her,
that Jerry had provided them plate numbers
and they sang like canaries.
And the gig was up.
As the case was moving towards trial,
the defense provided to us an informant
who knew Jerry and who also knew Rajive.
[ex-friend] When Frank asked me
to testify,
automatically, I knew my case
would have been dropped.
So I started, like, jumping up for joy.
I felt like I hit the lottery.
You know, that's how happy I was.
What Jerry did was wrong,
and he needs to pay.
He needs to face justice.
That was my closure to move forward.
[Frank] The evidence of the conspiracy,
when we went to trial, was overwhelming.
We had each of the co-conspirators
testifying for the prosecution.
We had his ex-girlfriend Sophia Lewis
getting onto the witness stand,
testifying against Jerry.
The conspiracy case and the rape case
were joined as one indictment.
Um, and that was primarily because
in order to tell
the story of the conspiracy,
the rape was necessary.
Uh, the rape was
the motivating factor for Jerry, uh,
conspiring to bring false charges
against Seemona.
Seemona was superb on the witness stand.
She was as compelling
as any single witness
I have ever seen testify
in a court of law.
During her testimony, jurors were crying.
You could hear a pin drop.
She gave a chillingly detailed account
of what happened
with her and the defendant.
At the end of this case,
the jury came back with a verdict.
It was the only time in my career
I got a standing ovation from the jury.
The evidence showed him to be
a violent rapist,
an evil and vindictive schemer,
a sinister manipulator,
a diabolical conniver.
And he deserves no mercy from me,
and he won't get it.
[Frank] Jerry was sentenced to 25 years,
which was the maximum on the rape,
plus seven years consecutive
for the conspiracy,
for a total of 32 years of incarceration.
After he was convicted,
he made a rant as to how, you know,
the true story was still gonna come out.
[Jerry] It's fine, you know, whatever
has to happen today has to happen.
But it's nowhere done and over.
I maintain my innocence,
and there's more to come.
It's not done.
How evil someone can be
to do something like this?
She has a kid,
and she was in jail for so long.
And he was out there, like,
having the time of his life.
Well, that's evil. Just pure evil.
[gentle music playing]
[Seemona] When I found out
that he was found guilty,
to me, it's like, "I told you so."
Like, I was more angry about it,
you know what I mean?
Why why couldn't anybody listen to me?
Why did it have to take seven months
for us to go through this, you know?
For me, like,
I knew it all all all along.
So I decided to pursue a case against
Detective Charles and Nassau County.
[Anthony] When Seemona was
arrested and interrogated,
Detective Charles had a folder
with information about Jerry in it.
How did they have Jerry's folder
on their desk
if they didn't really believe
he was somehow involved with this?
So they knew at the date of her arrest
that Jerry may have been involved
in these cases.
That is probably
the only time in my career
that I've ever seen anything like that.
In my professional opinion,
the prosecutors were asleep at the wheel.
The detectives were bumbling buffoons,
as well as, unfortunately, dishonest.
They knew that Jerry was
an informant with the NYPD.
They knew that
Jerry purported to many, many people
that he was in law enforcement
when he wasn't.
Detectives knew you could absolutely not
trust a word that came out of his mouth.
He would tell you with a straight face
it's Sunday when it was Monday.
And failure to really investigate him
and look into this further
was just pure malfeasance.
[redeeming music playing]
[Seemona] I never said,
"Oh, I wanted x amount."
I never relayed that to anybody else
or "I deserve that amount."
I just wanted to win, I think.
Admit that you all were
way out of line and wrong
because I didn't want
to have to go to testify,
have Chiara go to testify.
Any settlement
they probably would have gave me,
I probably would have just said yes to,
just for it to be over.
So yes, that was a relief, and I couldn't
have asked for a better outcome.
[music fades]
[compelling music playing]
[music ends]