By Joe Mahoney
The Daily Star
ONEONTA, NY — Former IBM program manager Ganesh “Remy” Ramsaran was sentenced Monday to the maximum penalty of 25 years in prison for killing his wife, Jennifer, nearly two years ago while he was having an extra-marital affair with her best friend.
Ramsaran, 39, of South New Berlin launched into a verbal tirade before the sentence was meted out, lashing out at Chenango County Judge Frank Revoir Jr. and mocking the evidence assembled against him by District Attorney Joseph McBride and police investigators.
Barring a successful appeal of his second-degree murder conviction, his earliest possible release date from state prison is May 22, 2038, according to the state Department of Correctional Services.
Judge Revoir, who presided over the September trial at which Ganesh Ramsaran was convicted by a jury after three hours of deliberations, required the defendant to stand while he characterized him as callous and devoid of any regret for the consequences of leaving his three children without a mother.
“After killing Jennifer, you drove several several miles away and dumped her naked body on the roadside, exposed to the elements and wildlife,” Revoir said. “How absolutely gruesome and disgusting. You could not have possessed even one small iota of sadness, regret or remorse to leave your wife and mother of your three children in such a manner.”
He added: “Words cannot describe the visual image of dragging Jennifer’s body out of the family van and pushing her down the embankment.”
Ramsaran strenuously denied having anything to do with his wife’s disappearance and death.
Prosecution evidence presented at trial by District Attorney Joseph McBride indicated that the husband killed his wife moments after she had been using her iPhone to play an online game with a cyber friend in England.
Clad in jail-issued orange sweatshirt and sweatpants, Ramsaran went on a lengthy rant at the sentencing, claiming inmates at the county jail are routinely deprived of their right to write letters. He maintained some have been pepper-sprayed by corrections officers, and called on the news media to investigate his allegations.
“People are getting pepper-sprayed for no reason,” the bearded Ramsaran said. “It’s a travesty of justice what’s going on in there.”
He also once again vehemently denied killing his wife, insisting: “The only thing I’m guilty of is having an affair.”
But this time he stunned the courtroom by claiming what he had done was no different than what the judge has done in his own personal life. “You’ve had your own affair,” he remarked.
His diatribe was interrupted by both District Attorney Joseph McBride and Judge Revoir, both admonishing him for straying outside the scope of the sentencing proceeding.
Outside the courtroom, McBride said later he had never seen a defendant act with such “disrespect” towards a jurist.
“These are the true colors of Mr. Ramsaran coming out and, unfortunately, the entire community had to see it today,” the veteran prosecutor said.
In sentencing Ramsaran, Revoir recited a selection of prose by the 18th century Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, then paraphrased them to describe the pain and loss caused by the defendant.
“Jennifer Ramsaran will never again rise with the sun and be happy in its warm glow, or simply breathe and be happy, or dig in a garden and be happy, or wander in the wild and be happy or watch the sky and be happy or see the loving faces of her mother, her father her sister and children,” Revoir said.
He said Ramsaran schemed up “the illusion of a distraught husband” and set in motion “a series of ridiculous wild goose chases” by claiming his missing wife had taken the family van to a mall near Syracuse to go Christmas shopping.
Along the way, he “besmirched” his wife’s reputation, by falsely attempting to link her with drug use, the judge said, adding: “I can only describe your testimony as a continuation of lies and attempted manipulation.”
Calling attention to Ramsaran’s at times weepy testimony during the trial, Revoir said: “You should win an Academy Award for your ability to cry.”
McBride asked Revoir to impose the maximum sentence. He said Ramsaran decided to “terminate” the life of Jennifer Ramsaran because he had been having an affair with his wife’s girlfriend and he wanted to avoid having the couple’s property divided as part of a divorce settlement.
The victim’s parents, Carol and Thomas Renz, had a front-row seat for the sentencing but opted not to address the judge. Also present were Ganesh Ramsaran’s parents, Tara and Mangra Ramsaran. Seated near the victim’s parents were several members of a local grassroots group called Justice for Jennifer Ramsaran. In social media postings, group members had urged the maximum sentence under the law.
Defense lawyer Gil Garcia described Ganesh Ramsaran as “a broken man” convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.
Following the sentencing, Ganesh Ramsaran was transferred to the custody of the state Department of Correctional Services and was immediately given a prison Identification Number -- 14B3536.
He is expected to remain at Elmira Correctional Facility for several weeks while he undergoes classification screening, after which he will be sent to another maximum security prison.
McBride told reporters that he sees Ramsaran as posing such a danger to the general public that he should be denied parole once he becomes eligible for release consideration.
“I really believe he thought he was going to be smarter than everyone in Chenango County,” McBride said.
Ramsaran told New Berlin police the evening of Dec. 11, 2012 that his wife was missing after she left the home to go shopping at a mall near Syracuse. The next day, he admitted to police he had been having an affair with a married woman who was one of his wife’s closest friends. Also that day, he told police he located her iPhone in a creek bed off state Route 23 in Plymouth, several miles west of Norwich, using an application designed to zero in on missing smart phones.
Prosecution evidence at the trial raised significance questions about the credibility of his alibi that he went for a jog to the Norwich YMCA that day, with Chenango District Attorney Joseph McBride arguing that Ramsaran instead abandoned his wife’s body in Pharsalia, ditched her iPhone in Plymouth and left her van in Norwich before walking to the YMCA.
On Feb. 26, 2013, a little more than 11 months weeks after he had reported that Jennifer Ramsaran was missing, her body was located in a remote wooded area off Center Road in Pharsalia. He was charged with murder nearly three months later.
After an autopsy determined she was murdered but could not pinpoint a precise manner in which she was killed, Ramsaran was indicted by a county grand jury in May 2013.
Lt Richard Cobb, who ran the investigation that led to the arrest, said the circumstances surrounding the reported disappearance of Jennifer Ramsaran posed a major challenge for police.
“The only information we were getting, at least initially, was from him, and he was lying to us,” said Cobb. He noted that one of the key pieces of incriminating was “his alibi falling apart” when surveillance cameras in downtown Norwich never filmed Ramsaran run along the path he claimed he took to get to the Norwich YMCA the day he reported his wife missing.
Ramsaran had been held at Chenango County Jail since soon after his indictment. Last month, the Sheriff’s Department charged him with a felony, second-degree bribery, after he allegedly offered a local corrections officer a $100,000 bribe to help him escape.
Prior to being sentenced today, he was arraigned on the bribery charge and pleaded not guilty.
Mangra Ramsaran, Ganesh’s father, said police rushed to judgement on the case. He predicted his son will win his appeal of the conviction. He also disputed the allegation that his son offered a bribe to a corrections officer, insisting he had no money with which to make such an offer.
The father also said he believes his son’s claim that Chenango inmates are often mistreated. He claimed corrections officers deprived his son of a shaving razor and a haircut in recent weeks at the county jail.
“They wanted him to look like a terrorist when he came to the court,” he said.
Against the backdrop of the criminal proceedings against Ganesh Ramsaran, the couple’s three children have been living with their maternal grandparents. Authorities said they were in school at the time their father killed their mother.
The jail time Ganesh Ramsaran has served since shortly after his arrest will count towards the 25-year sentence.