Convicted Felon, P.I. & Wesley Hills N.Y. ‘bounty hunter’ accused of menacing people with unlicensed gun!

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Jan 302012
 

Wesley Hills ‘bounty hunter’ accused of menacing people with unlicensed gun

LoHud.com

by Steve Lieberman

Jan. 30, 2012

Scott Bernstein

RAMAPO —

A self-proclaimed bounty hunter with a history of arrests has been charged with possessing an unlicensed gun and menacing people he was supposedly interviewing as potential interns at his Wesley Hills office, police said Monday.

Scott Bernstein, 53, a private investigator who posed as a cop in the Laci Peterson murder case in California and was featured on CBS’ “60 Minutes” report on bounty hunters, was accused of brandishing a pistol in a menacing manner at two people at his office on Jan. 5, police said.

The two people became scared by his actions and reported the incident to the police, Ramapo Detective Sgt. John Lynch said today. Bernstein was interviewing people at his home-office at 87 Spook Rock Road , Lynch said.

Based on his felony conviction in California and misdemeanor convictions in New York, Bernstein doesn’t have a permit to possess firearms, Lynch said.

“There’s no record of him having a pistol permit,” Lynch said. “We went and obtained an arrest warrant for him and search warrant for his home-office.”

Police charged Bernstein with one count of third-degree criminal possession of a a weapon and two counts of second-degree menacing.

Bernstein’s lawyer, William Reddy, said the charges would be challenged in court. Reddy said the complaintants were slow to call the police and the charges fabricated, which would mean the warrants were obtained without legal cause.

“As per documents drafted by the police, it appears that the persons who accused him of menacing waited more than a week before reporting it to the police,” Reddy said. “If they really were threatened with a weapon, they would have reported it immediately. This matter will be defended in court, and the truth will prevail.”

Ramapo officers arrested Bernstein with the assistance of the Rockland Rescue Entry and Counter Terrorism team, the county’s SWAT team.

Lynch said the officers found two semiautomatic pistols and Chuka sticks, a martial arts weapon, during the search.

Bernstein has been arrested before in Ramapo and served community service for pulling over a driver and causing $936 worth of damage to her car in 2005.

In 2005, Bernstein, in a plea agreement with prosecutors, pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal mischief and two counts of second-degree criminal impersonation, misdemeanors.

Bernstein admitted to pulling over cars – including an off-duty South Nyack-Grand View police officer – while using his black Dodge Intrepid, which was equipped with emergency lights and sirens. The incidents occurred in January and February.

In California, Bernstein had been convicted of posing as a police officer and flashing a badge to get information related to the disappearance of Laci Peterson, whose husband, Scott, was eventually convicted of murder.

 

Direct Link:  http://www.lohud.com/article/20120130/NEWS03/301300085?fb_ref=artsharebottom&fb_source=home_oneline

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Man (Private Detective) Guilty of Raping Ex-Girlfriend and Then Framing Her

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Nov 242011
 

Man (Private Detective) Guilty of Raping Ex-Girlfriend and Then Framing Her
By DAN BILEFSKY
November 23, 2011
Photos byUli Seit for The New York Times


Jerry Ramrattan after he was found guilty of more than 10 charges. Mr. Ramrattan cajoled false witnesses into saying Seemona Sumasar robbed them at gunpoint, prosecutors said.
* Seemona Sumasar said all along that she was raped by her ex-boyfriend, who then framed her for a series of armed robberies that never took place.

Prosecutors said Mr. Ramrattan hatched his scheme after Ms. Sumasar, right, refused to drop rape charges against him.

On Wednesday, a jury in State Supreme Court in Queens agreed, finding the ex-boyfriend, Jerry Ramrattan, guilty of more than 10 charges, including rape, perjury and conspiracy. Mr. Ramrattan faces more than 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 4.

Using knowledge he gleaned partly from watching television crime dramas like “C.S.I.,” Mr. Ramrattan, a private detective in Queens, orchestrated what prosecutors called the most complex and diabolical frame-up in New York in recent memory.

For Ms. Sumasar, 36, the verdict, following a day and a half of deliberation, brought vindication after a nightmarish experience that had transformed her from rape victim to criminal.

“Now that this is over, I can start my life again,” she said in an interview. “Last year, I spent Thanksgiving inside a jail cell. Jerry told so many lies, and I was imprisoned because authorities had decided to believe him. But I am not bitter. The truth won out in the end.”

As the guilty verdict was announced, Mr. Ramrattan, 39, who had muttered at the prosecution witnesses and smiled at the jury during the trial, sat quietly, staring ahead. Outside the courtroom, Ms. Sumasar’s family leapt in joy.

Prosecutors told the jury that Mr. Ramrattan hatched the scheme after Ms. Sumasar, a former restaurant owner and analyst with Morgan Stanley, refused to drop rape charges against him. They said he intimidated and cajoled false witnesses into telling the authorities that she had dressed as a police officer and robbed them at gunpoint.

While jailed for seven months, until last December, Ms. Sumasar was separated from her young daughter. She lost her restaurant, and her house in Far Rockaway, Queens, went into foreclosure. Her bail was set at $1 million, which she could not afford. Meanwhile, Mr. Ramrattan walked free until an informer came forward and exposed his ruse.

The verdict was a righting of wrongs for the Queens district attorney’s office, which had insisted, along with the Nassau County district attorney’s office, on Ms. Sumasar’s guilt until she was freed from her cell on Long Island just weeks before her own trial was to begin. Legal experts said the case was a cautionary tale of how tunnel vision could infect law enforcement officials, in some cases pushing them to wrongly punish the innocent.

Prosecutors insisted that few could have seen Mr. Ramrattan’s sinister plot.

Frank DeGaetano, an assistant district attorney and the prosecutor in Mr. Ramrattan’s case, alluded to the scale and brutality of his crimes.

“Jerry Ramrattan created a complex web to ensnare Seemona,” Mr. DeGaetano told jurors. “He is unique: who goes to such extremes to destroy a person?”

Mr. Ramrattan’s lawyer, Frank Kelly — whose request for a mistrial, on the grounds that prosecutors did not hand over vital documents, was refused — said he would appeal. During his summation, he accused prosecutors of relying on “a bunch of liars, thieves and manipulators” to make their case.

The nearly month long trial offered two narratives that were difficult to reconcile. Prosecutors portrayed Ms. Sumasar as a single mother charmed by a wily confidence man who ruined her life. But the defense presented Ms. Sumasar as a scorned woman who falsely accused her ex-boyfriend of rape because their relationship had soured.

Members of the jury said the guilty verdict hinged on their belief that Mr. Ramrattan had raped Ms. Sumasar, giving him a motive to set his plot in motion. They said the defense’s argument had seemed to be a smoke screen.

“We believed that she was raped,” said Caryn Eyring-Swick, the jury forewoman. “She didn’t fall apart or crumble on the stand. You could see her jaw tighten. We knew that Ramrattan had done something that would affect his victims forever.”

Jury members said they had not been convinced by the defense’s argument that Ms. Sumasar was a jilted and vengeful woman.

Denise Li, an alternate jury member from Flushing, said the defense’s claim that Ms. Sumasar was set up by underworld characters to whom she owed money seemed like a conspiracy theory conjured by Mr. Ramrattan. She said she had been put off by Mr. Ramrattan’s demeanor in court.

“Ramrattan was so arrogant and smirking during the trial,” Ms. Li said. “He was manipulative and thought so highly of himself, he thought he could get away with it.”

Danielle Stancik, another juror, said the case seemed like Hollywood fiction. “If I had seen this on TV,” she said, “my reaction would be, ‘How could this really happen?’ ”

Direct Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/nyregion/jerry-ramrattan-found-guilty-of-raping-and-framing-ex-girlfriend.html

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Convictions will strip Kevin White of investigative licenses

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Nov 142011
 

Convictions will strip Kevin White of investigative licenses
By Bill Varian, Times Staff Writer
November 12, 2011


Former Commissioner Kevin White may serve prison time.

TAMPA — Former Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White faces more than a possible prison term after his conviction on federal public corruption charges this week.

He also likely will lose his ability to work as a private investigator with a security firm, his current profession. And he won’t be able to carry a gun.

Convicted felons are not allowed to have private investigator licenses in the state of Florida. White currently holds three licenses related to the field, one as a private investigator, another allowing him to carry a gun as part of that work and a third to manage an investigative and security firm.

Each license is subject to revocation immediately after his conviction, said Ken Rutledge, immediate past president of the Florida Association of Private Investigators. While a state statute governing such licenses contemplates the ability to apply for reinstatement 10 years after the end of supervision, securing a license after a felony conviction is “next to impossible,” he said.

“He’s effectively out of the business as an investigator,” said Rutledge of Lakeland.

Similarly, state law prohibits felons from obtaining a concealed weapons permit. White, 46, a Democrat and former Tampa police officer, has said in the past he routinely carries a handgun, sometimes more than one.

The subject came up after White acknowledged carrying guns to work with him at County Center, though a policy prohibits other people from having firearms in the building. White said he needed the guns to protect himself from people whom he arrested in the past who might seek to harm him.

Sterling Ivey, spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture, which oversees investigator licenses and concealed weapons permits, said the division is regularly updated on convictions in state court. The department responds to federal convictions as it learns of them.

“We’ll suspend the license of the permit holder,” he said. “Then, of course, they’re flagged in our system if they try to reapply.”

White formed his company, Icon Security Solutions, in the runup to the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa, pitching limousine rides with security protection for bigwigs. It was initially located in a storefront in the same building that houses the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission, which was at the center of his payoffs-for-tow-truck-certificates trial.

The business has since closed at that location and state records lists its current address as his home in Riverview.

Private investigators must serve internships and take 40 hours of training coursework and pass a test in order to obtain a license. The license gives them access to some records not available to the broader public.

Honesty and ethics are important in the field, said Mark Feegel, the current president of FAPI and owner of Feegel & Associates of St. Petersburg. A prohibition against convicted felons helps maintain professionalism and integrity in the profession, he said.

“We wouldn’t accept them in our association,” Feegel said. “I would never hire them.”

White was convicted on seven counts last week, including bribery, conspiracy and wire fraud. He was soundly defeated in a re-election bid last year that followed a federal jury’s finding that he sexually harassed a former aide.

The county is suing him to recoup some of the more than $400,000 in legal bills amassed in that trial. White has said he is too broke to pay.

An attempt to reach him was unsuccessful.

Direct Link: http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/convictions-will-strip-kevin-white-of-investigative-licenses/1201282

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Detective in Phone Hacking Inquiry Is Arrested

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Nov 082011
 

Detective in Phone Hacking Inquiry Is Arrested
By SARAH LYALL
Published: August 19, 2011

LONDON — A Scotland Yard detective has been arrested on suspicion of leaking details about the phone hacking case to the news media, the police said on Friday.
Reporter Known for Scoops Is Held in Hacking Inquiry (August 19, 2011)

The detective, described as a 51-year-old man, was arrested at work on Thursday “on suspicion of misconduct in a public office relating to an unauthorized disclosure of information,” the police said. He has not been charged, but was released and ordered to report back for further questioning on Sept. 29. He has been suspended from his job.

The police would not identify the detective, but said he was assigned to Operation Weeting, which is looking into allegations of phone hacking at the now-defunct tabloid The News of the World and other newspapers.

Leaking to the news media is technically a criminal offense. But such disclosures have long been common practice for some police officers who work frequently with the news media, and it is highly unusual for an officer to be arrested on suspicion of merely leaking information.

A second investigation is looking at charges that some reporters and editors paid the police for information, but no officers have been arrested in that case.

A person close to the investigation said it was likely that the Operation Weeting leaks at issue in Thursday’s arrest were recent ones, perhaps having to do with the disclosure of the names of people arrested so far on suspicion of phone hacking. The police typically do not name suspects until they have been formally charged, identifying them instead by gender and age.

The arrest of the suspected leaker seems designed to send a signal that the leader of the investigation, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, is angry about the disclosures and is determined to keep details of the investigation out of the public domain.

“I made it very clear when I took on this investigation the need for operational and information security,” Commissioner Akers said in a statement. “It is hugely disappointing that this may not have been adhered to.”

She added that the police department “takes the unauthorized disclosure of information extremely seriously and has acted swiftly in making this arrest.”

A former Scotland Yard official with knowledge of the inquiry said it was both surprising and unusual that the first arrest of an officer was for reportedly leaking information to the news media about the phone hacking investigation rather than selling information to The News of the World. A separate Metropolitan Police inquiry is investigating e-mails that suggest police officers sold classified contact information about public figures, including members of the royal family, to reporters and editors at The News of the World.

The police also said that a second man was arrested on Friday as part of Operation Weeting, bringing to 14 the number of people arrested so far on suspicion of phone hacking or illegally accessing voice mail messages. With the recent addition of 20 new officers, there are now 65 investigators working full time on the case.

The man, 35, was named by Sky News as Dan Evans, a former reporter for The News of the World. The newspaper suspended Mr. Evans in the spring of 2010 after his name emerged as part of a civil suit brought against it by the interior designer Kelly Hoppen. Ms. Hoppen, the stepmother of the actress Sienna Miller, claimed that her phone had been hacked into.

Ms. Hoppen’s case began with information seized by the police in 2006, when the first phone hacking case — involving Clive Goodman, the former royal reporter for The News of the World, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator hired by the paper — came to light. At the time, the police seized 12,000 pages of documentation from Mr. Mulcaire that included lists of cellphone numbers, PINs and names of people whose messages he might have illegally intercepted.

Both Mr. Mulcaire and Mr. Goodman were convicted in 2007; each served several months in jail.

But this arrest seems to stem from a more recent episode. If that is the case, it would contradict assertions at the time by the paper’s parent company, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, that after the arrests The News of the World cracked down, putting a stop to phone hacking.

Until last winter, the company said that the hacking had been limited to one “rogue” reporter — Mr. Goodman.

According to Sky, the detective arrested on Thursday is suspected of leaking information to the newspaper The Guardian, which has consistently revealed more details than its competitors about the hacking arrests.

On its Web site, The Guardian said it would not comment on the allegations, merely saying, “We note the arrest.”

The paper quoted a spokesperson as saying: “On the broader point raised by the arrest, journalists would no doubt be concerned if conversations between off-the-record sources and reporters came routinely to be regarded as criminal activity. In common with all news organizations we have no comment to make on the sources of our journalism.”

News International, the British newspaper arm of the News Corporation, said it was cooperating with the investigation and would have no comment about the arrests.

Don Van Natta Jr. contributed reporting from Miami.

Direct Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/world/europe/20hacking.html

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P.I. Arrest by N.C. Trooper finally ruled unlawful

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Nov 082011
 

P.I. Arrest by N.C. Trooper finally ruled unlawful
By KEN MURCHISON

It took six years, but the state has finally ruled that a Rocky Mount-based N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper’s arrest of a private investigator was unlawful.
Trooper Stephanie Young arrested Rick G. Eatmon on May 25, 2005 while Eatmon was investigating a possible affair between his client’s wife and Rocky Mount Police Sgt. David Hawkins. Hawkins, who was campaigning for the Democratic nomination for Nash County Sheriff at the time, is Young’s father.
In late May, the North Carolina Industrial Commission ruled that Young’s actions made the state negligent and said Eatmon was due $15,000 for the improper arrest. But since Eatmon had already been awarded $46,000 as a result of other lawsuits against Young, Hawkins, and the Rocky Mount Police Department, Deputy Industrial Commissioner George T. Glenn ruled that he was not entitled to any more monetary compensation.
In court documents released last month, the Assistant Attorney General Dahr Joseph Tanoury admitted that Young “did not have a lawful reason for stopping Plaintiff’s vehicle on I-95, and that Trooper Young’s reasons for stopping the vehicle and arresting Plaintiff were purely personal in nature, and Young was acting outside the course and scope of her authority as a trooper, and was disciplined as a result of her intentional actions by receiving a two-day suspension and transfer.”
Eatmon has said he does not know if he will appeal the ruling.

Eatmon said he was hired in 2005 by a man who suspected his wife was having an affair with Hawkins. He said he had almost concluded his investigation when he was pulled over and arrested by Young for an alleged improper lane change on the Interstate.
“I had basically completed my investigation, but I was asked by my client’s attorney to do one more day,” he said.
He said he was trying to find his client’s wife on May 25, 2005, and that when she got home she recognized his van from his previous surveillance and began following him. He said that Hawkins, along with two Rocky Mount police officers, also began following him. At that time, he decided to head to Roanoke Rapids instead of going home to Wilson.
“Knowing my case had already been exposed, I did not want to take these people back to my home and my family,” Eatmon said. “I had just concluded a case in Roanoke Rapids where I worked with the police chief and mayor, so I had people I knew and trusted there.”
Eatmon said the cars stopped following him near Enfield and that he continued on to Roanoke Rapids. After spending around 30 minutes in Roanoke Rapids, Eatmon got back on I-95 to drive back to Wilson. He said he did not have any problems until he got near the U.S. 64 interchange.
“I spotted a state trooper car parked at the exit, and I made sure I was obeying all of the laws,” Eatmon said. “As soon as I passed her and she recognized my van, she immediately proceeded after me with her blue lights on and I pulled over.”
Eatmon said he tried to give Young his driver’s license, his private investigator’s license, and his concealed carry permits, but Young only took his driver’s license back to her patrol car where she made a telephone call.
“She later admitted in a deposition that she called her father and gave him the information from my license,” Eatmon said.
Young then arrested Eatmon and charged him with carrying a concealed weapon, a concealed weapon permit violation, a safe movement traffic violation, and resisting arrest. She also called two Rocky Mount police officers to the scene to assist her. They said Eatmon appeared to be complying with Young and that he was not resisting arrest.
A judge dismissed all charges almost one year after the arrest.

Eatmon said he is disappointed that the industrial commission judge did not think the six years he sat in courtrooms were worth more than $50,000.
Eatmon said though that his fight has not been about money. He said he took the trouble in an attempt to help anyone who has been a victim of law enforcement officers abusing their authority.
He said he is also unhappy that Young is still employed by the Highway Patrol and is still serving the Rocky Mount area.

Direct Link: http://springhopeenterprise.com/arrest-by-area-trooper-finally-ruled-unlawful-p5251-100.htm

 Posted by at 19:21  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Another black eye for N.C. Highway Patrol?

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Nov 082011
 

Another black eye for N.C. Highway Patrol?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
By: Ed Crump

RALEIGH (WTVD) — A former law enforcement officer said Wednesday that he’s “disgusted” by allegations about a North Carolina Highway Patrol officer that came to light in a hearing before the N.C. Industrial Commission.

Macks Pickett – a long-time Wake County Sheriff’s deputy who rose to the rank of captain before retiring – said Trooper Stephanie Young should be fired.

According to court documents, Trooper Young arrested private investigator Rick G. Eatmon in 2005 during a traffic stop.

Eatmon alleges Young charged him with resisting a public officer, failing to signal before changing lanes, and two counts of carrying a concealed weapon because he was investigating whether Young’s father was having an affair.

 

The father was a Rocky Mount police sergeant who was preparing a run for Nash County sheriff. Eatmon has settled lawsuits against Rocky Mount, Young, and Young’s father David Hawkins.
He’s seeking more compensation from the state.

Court documents show the state doesn’t dispute Eatmon’s allegations, yet following an internal investigation, she received a two-day suspension.

Pickett said he’s stunned by the leniency of the punishment.

“That is the most unethical thing that can be done,” he said.

“She committed kidnapping, false arrest, and the Highway Patrol gives her two days and doesn’t even move her out of the county,” he continued.

Pickett told ABC11 that he’s outraged not only about the incident, but also that it didn’t come to light until the private investigator filed suit against the state.

“They can reinvestigate it,” said Prickett. “It would be to their advantage and the colonel’s advantage to reinvestigate it because whoever investigated it the first time sure didn’t do what they were supposed to do.”

ABC11 reached out to the Highway Patrol and was told Colonel Michael Gilchrist was not available for an interview.

Colonel Gilchrist took over the top job at the Highway Patrol in October following a series of scandals that dogged the department ranging from drunken driving arrests to sending inappropriate text messages.

A spokesperson did say the department can’t reopen its 2005 investigation, saying that would be akin to double jeopardy in the legal system.

Since the 2005 incident, Trooper Young has received three pay raises for her job performance.

Direct Link: http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=8152314

 Posted by at 19:15  Tagged with: , , , , , ,
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