No pity for con in slay of Finest
Ailing woman can die in jail: judge
A terminally ill prisoner serving out a second conviction in the decades-old Brooklyn killing of an NYPD officer was denied a compassionate release, with a judge arguing that he was aware she might die behind bars when he sentenced her, new court filings show.
Betsy Ramos, 56, is halfway through a two-year sentence imposed for breaking federal parole when her boyfriend killed Officer Anthony Mosomillo on May 26, 1998, inside her East Flatbush apartment.
The 36-year-old decorated officer, a father of two from Glendale, Queens, died on the operating table hours after Ramos’ boyfriend, Jose Serrano, shot him during a bench warrant arrest. The mortally wounded Mosomillo, as he fell to the ground, shot and killed Serrano.
On palliative care inside a Texas federal lockup that houses sick female inmates, Ramos’ Stage 4 rectal cancer, which has metastasized to her lungs, is now expected to kill her within 12 to 18 months, medical documents show.
But her grave medical condition is not relevant to her release, Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis decided Monday, noting it was well-known when he put Ramos back in jail.
“The progression of Ms. Ramos’ disease was anticipated by the medical evidence at the time the court imposed her sentence,” Garaufis wrote. “In light of the circumstances at the time of sentencing and the circumstances today, the court does not find ‘extraordinary and compelling reasons’ to deviate from the sentence originally imposed.”
With Serrano dead, Ramos was the only person prosecuted for the hero cop’s killing. She received 15 years to life on second-degree manslaughter charges, the harshest possible sentence.
A jury found Ramos guilty of causing Mosomillo’s partner, Officer Miriam Sanchez-Torres, to drop the gun Serrano used to shoot the cop between eight and 10 times.
Including pretrial incarceration, Ramos ultimately served 22 years in prison for Mosomillo’s death.
When she was released Dec. 9, 2019, Ramos learned her freedom would last only a few hours. The city’s largest police union lobbied the federal government to put her back in prison because the Parole Board didn’t give the Mosomillo family a chance to share their feelings on the record.
Then in the days after her release, federal prosecutors charged Ramos with something they hadn’t had decades ago: violating parole on a previous drug-related conviction when Serrano killed
Mosomillo inside her Brooklyn apartment.
Ramos pleaded guilty to the violation, and Garaufis sided with the feds and the Police Benevolent Association in deciding that it called for another 24 months in prison.
Ramos’ lawyers have long argued she was a victim of Serrano. In multiple requests urging her release, evidence Serrano brutally beat and raped Ramos on numerous occasions is included in decades-old documents from the Safe Horizon women’s shelter.
“Ramos has done more time for this offense than anyone else has ever served for a similar offense. The system is piling on punishment after punishment,” Ramos’ attorney Ron Kuby said Tuesday, “piling on torture and punishment because her dead boyfriend’s victim was a police officer.”
Mosomillo’s family members didn’t return multiple requests for comment.
The PBA decision.
“This will be the 22nd Christmas that P.O. Anthony Mosomillo does not get to spend at home with his family. He does not get to petition for release from his sentence,” PBA President Patrick Lynch said in a statement to the Daily News.
“We thank Judge Garaufis for lauded
Garaufis’ continuing to ensure serves her sentence.”
A close relative of Ramos, speaking on the condition of anonymity, lamented that she had already served 20 years behind bars in the Mosomillo death and said Ramos’ dying wish, after spending more than half her life in prison, is to spend her final days surrounded by family.
“She’s been portrayed as such a monster. Over and over again,” the family member said. “She just wants to spend whatever time she has left with her family. She did her time and then some.”
PBS included Ramos among its subjects in a 2003 documentary called “What I Want My Words to Do to You.” The film profiled a writing workshop led by playwright Eve Ensler at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, where Ramos served her initial sentence.
Marisa Tomei, Rosie Perez and Glenn Close were among the Hollywood stars who acted out Ramos’ and her fellow inmates’ manuscripts in a staged performance at the end of the film.
“I wish with my words to give you glimpses of the life I’ve lived, of the life I am living. So that you will know me, and therefore be able to judge me on the merit of who I truly am,” Ramos wrote in her manuscript. that she