MINEOLA, N.Y. – Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced new grand jury charges against a Hempstead man in the July 2013 attempted rape of a sex worker he agreed to meet at a motel in Westbury. He also faces charges in three other attacks against women advertising sex for money on the Internet.
Ramone Smith, 23, was arraigned today before Nassau County Court Judge Angelo Delligatti on grand jury charges of Attempted Rape in the 1st Degree (a B violent felony), Attempted Sexual Abuse in the 1st Degree (a D violent felony), Robbery in the 3rd Degree (a D felony), Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the 3rd degree (a D felony), and Petit Larceny (an A misdemeanor). Bail was set at remand. He is due back in court on June 27.
In February 2014, Smith was arraigned on grand jury charges of four counts of Predatory Sexual Assault (an A-II violent felony), Criminal Sex Act in the 1st Degree (a B violent felony), four counts of Sexual Abuse in the 1st Degree (a D violent felony), three counts of Rape in the 1st Degree (a B violent felony), three counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the 3rd Degree (a D felony), and Coercion in the 1st Degree (a D felony) for three separate attacks on women in June 2013 and August 2013.
If convicted of the top charges against him, Smith faces up to 50 years to life in prison.
“These women were victimized twice – by both the commercial sex trade and the brutal violence of their attacker,” DA Rice said. “This defendant inflicted even more pain and degradation on women who were already in need of help and protection.”
DA Rice said that on July 18, 2013, Smith attempted to rape a 22-year-old New Hampshire woman at knifepoint in the woman’s room at the Red Roof Inn in Westbury. Smith had answered the woman’s advertisement on the website Backpage and had agreed to meet her at her motel room, where he then tried to sexually assault her. Smith also forcibly stole an item of the woman’s lingerie before she was able to flee the room and to safety.
Smith has also been charged with meeting three separate women in June and August of 2013 at his apartment building on Washington Street in Hempstead after he had answered each woman’s advertisement in an “adult entertainment services” section on Backpage. Each of these women was instead lured to the roof by Smith, where he sexually assaulted them.
Smith was arrested by detectives from the Nassau County Police Department’s Narcotics Vice Squad working in conjunction with the Special Victims Squad on Sept. 3, 2013 and rearrested on Nov. 15, 2013.
Assistant District Attorney D.J. Rosenbaum of DA Rice’s Special Victims Bureau is prosecuting the case. Smith is represented by Ed Mandery, Esq.
The charges are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless found guilty.
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