Holly MatkinBrooklyn, NY – A convicted cop-killer who was granted parole without the knowledge of the slain officer’s family has been returned to prison while a federal judge prepares to hear from the officer’s family members.
The New York State Board of Parole granted Betsy Ramos’ parole request on Oct. 29, according to a New York Police Benevolent Association (PBA) press release in November.
Ramos was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in the 1998 shooting death of New York Police Department (NYPD) Officer Anthony Mosomillo, and was sentenced as a persistent felony offender to 15 years to life the following year, The New York Times reported.
At the time of Officer Mosomillo’s murder, Ramos was already serving a federal probation sentence for importing heroin, according to the New York Post.
When she was released onto parole from the state manslaughter charge on Tuesday, she was taken directly to Brooklyn federal court, where she pleaded guilty to having violated her federal probation sentence due to the murder.
“I hid my abuser from the police when they came to serve a warrant,” Ramos told the judge, according to the New York Post. “My actions that day set in motion a situation where a police officer died…But I did not kill the police officer.”
Ramos and her attorney, Ron Kuby, had hoped that the judge would release her with credit for time served.
Instead, Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered that she be held in federal custody until her sentencing on Dec. 20, in order to provide Officer Mosomillo’s family with the opportunity to speak at her sentencing hearing, the New York Post reported.
Kuby argued that Ramos was not a threat to the community, and pushed the judge to sentence her immediately, according to the New York Daily News.
“[The Mosomillo family’s] position has not changed in 22 years. I don’t know what will be gained by speaking with them in a month,” the defense attorney told the court. “I understand you want to do due diligence. I just don’t think there will be any new information.”
But his flippant argument failed to sway the judge, who pointed out that he had only been given two days to review the case prior to Ramos’ guilty pleas, the New York Daily News reported.
“I don’t care if it was yesterday or 10 years ago or 20 years ago,” Garaufis snapped at Kuby. “When someone is murdered, whether it’s a police officer or otherwise, I want to hear from the family, and two days is not going to do it.”
PBA President Patrick Lynch said that Officer Mosomillo’s family is grateful that Garaufis has made it a point to let their voices be heard.
“Because of the New York State Parole Board’s outrageous deception, the Mosomillo family has been forced to live in fear of seeing Anthony’s killer walk out of prison doors,” Lynch said, according to the New York Post. “Their sacrifice matters. Their suffering matters. Their voices need to be heard.”
Officer Mosomillo’s daughter, Francesca, is slated to graduate from the New York Police Department (NYPD) academy on Dec. 27, just one week after Ramos’ sentencing is scheduled to take place.
According to court records, Officer Mosomillo had responded to Ramos’ East Flatbush apartment to arrest her parolee boyfriend, Jose Serrano, on an outstanding drug-related warrant, The New York Times reported.
Ramos, then 33, was on federal probation for smuggling heroin from Jamaica at the time. She also had three additional prior drug-related convictions.
When Officer Mosomillo and his partner, Officer Miriam Sanchez-Torres, arrived at the home, Ramos hid Serrano beneath a trapdoor in her apartment, the PBA said.
She then “attacked” the officers when they discovered Serrano’s hiding place, according to the PBA.
During the violent struggle that ensued, Ramos helped Serrano rip Officer Sanchez-Torres’ duty weapon out of its holster, The New York Times reported.
Serrano opened fire on Officer Mosomillo, striking him four times in his neck, chest, and arms.
The veteran officer returned fire, killing his attacker.
Officer Mosomillo, a 15-year veteran-of-the-force, later succumbed to his wounds at Kings County Hospital.
He left behind his wife, Margaret, and their two young daughters, The New York Times reported.
Ramos has since spun her story into a situation of domestic abuse and victimization, and touted her supposed “extraordinary remorse and rehabilitation” during a 2018 interview with The Decarceration Collective.
“I want my words to touch you in ways you never knew existed, for one minute, to put yourself in my shoes, to see me as a human being who truly made an error in judgement, who thought with her heart instead of her head, and is now paying with her life,” Ramos said in the video clip.
“See me as the daughter who yearns to be with her mother,” the convicted killer continued. “The woman who dreams of having a child grow in her womb.”
Ramos said she doesn’t understand why she lived and Officer Mosomillo died.
“Had I had the courage to face my reality, none of this would have happened,” she said in the video. “I never imagined nor meant for anyone to get hurt on this day. There’s not one day that I don’t think about how reckless and irresponsible I was at that point in time.”
Ramos said she believes the world will be a better place with her outside of prison.
According to court documents, the convicted cop-killer also alleged that she has been diagnosed with drug-resistant HIV, and that doctors have told her she only has about two years to live, the New York Post reported.
Officer Mosomillo’s widow, Margaret, said she has delivered a victim impact statement every two years since her husband’s murder in an effort to help keep Ramos behind bars.
Ramos was denied parole three times prior to January of 2019, according to The Decarceration Collective.
Margaret and other members of the Mosomillo family again delivered their statements before the parole board in January, and Ramos was denied release for a fourth time, the PBA said.
But Ramos appealed the denial, and was later granted a new hearing.
Margaret said she was never notified.
“Every two years, I have been forced to relive the pain of losing Anthony in order to deliver my victim impact statement — and always during the holidays, when I feel his loss the most,” Officer Mosomillo’s widow said in the PBA press release.
“This time, I didn’t even get that opportunity. Just a cold letter saying ‘your husband’s killer is being released,’” Margaret said. “That letter is what every family of a murdered police officer dreads, but the Parole Board could not care less. They have trampled my rights and hidden behind bureaucracy. Their sickening disregard for our family should serve as a warning to every crime victim in New York State. If they can do this to me, they can and will do it to you.”
The PBA said that the move was a “new low” for the parole board.
“The con game that the Parole Board just ran on the Mosomillo family is an utter disgrace,” Lynch said in the release. “Over the past year, we have seen multiple instances in which the Parole Board staff lied to or misled the families of fallen police officers in an apparent attempt to deprive them of their legal right to oppose the release of their loved ones’ killers.”
“They should just close down the Office of Victim Assistance, because they aren’t even pretending to care about crime victims anymore,” Lynch railed. “They are rolling out the red carpet for cop-killers and other vicious criminals at every turn, while our families live in fear of being victimized a second time.”
In March, the PBA announced that the New York State Department of Corrections and the parole board had “secretly disconnected” a direct link from the PBA’s website that allowed the public to submit letters of opposition to the board.
The following month, several dozen police widows and nearly 400 NYPD officers filled 10 buses to hand-deliver 816,725 letters to the board.
The letters filled over 360 boxes, according to the PBA.
“The letters are a portion of those that the Parole Board would have received via email had they not secretly stopped accepting parole opposition letters submitted via the PBA’s website in 2014,” the PBA said.
The PBA alleged that the board is “staffed primarily by pro-criminal advocates whose main mission is to spring prisoners, regardless of the severity of their crimes, from state-funded jails.”
“Parole Commissioners have ignored the recommendations of sentencing judges, who would have handed down a no-parole sentence if the law at the time allowed them to do so,” the union said. “In other instances, Parole Commissioners have pre-judged parole requests prior to hearing the victim’s impact statements of the survivors of these cold-blooded cop killings.”
“It is no surprise to us that there is a total lack of interest by the board in the concerns and opinions of the public at large and the police officers who risk their lives in the protection of this City,” the PBA added. “We will not be silenced or ignored. The PBA will ensure that every single letter generated via our website is delivered to the board.”