[UPDATE, JULY 21, 3:50 P.M.] Yesterday, a jury of his peers found Jaime Zamora Ramirez guilty
of raping two women, including a teenage female employee of his dry
cleaning business. According to this morning's press release issued by
the Orange County District Attorney's office, the jury ruled that
Ramirez was guilty of “two felony counts of forcible rape and one
felony count of forcible sexual penetration with sentencing enhancement
allegations for forcibly raping multiple victims and committing a sexual
offense during the commission of a residential burglary.”
The release also notes that back in 1992, Ramirez was convicted of
vehicular manslaughter. He faces a somewhat oxymoronic maximum sentence
of 140 years to life in state prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug.
17, 2011 at the Orange County Superior Courthouse in Santa Ana.
]
ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 29, 11:20 A.M.:] Oh how time flies when you're ignoring racist morons.
It's been nearly two years since our very first OC Register Reader Racist Fustercluck of the Week column ran on July 24, 2009. I retired the column, which was intended to lampoon the wackos who read the Register,
awhile back because the comments to the column were usually more racist
than the racist comments I was highlighting to begin with. In any case,
the focus of that first column was a Reggie story about a Latino
man who raped two women, including an underage female employee of his
Laundromat. Predictably, the comments quickly zeroed in on such lively
topics as whether the young victim would produce an anchor baby before
she was deported (the victim was indeed an “undocumented” immigrant).
In any case, the rapist alleged rapist, Jaime Zamora Ramirez, 42, is finally going to trial today, according to a press release issued by the Orange County District Attorney. The charges: “two felony counts of forcible rape with a sentencing enhancement allegation for forcibly raping multiple victims. He also faces a sentencing enhancement for a prior strike conviction for vehicular manslaughter in 1992.”
The basic allegations of the case are as follows: On Oct. 12, 2008, Ramirez “knocked on the door of Jane Doe #1's apartment and ask[ed] for a beer. The defendant is accused of being friends with the victim. After briefly walking away, Ramirez is accused of returning to [the] apartment, forcing her onto the bed, and forcibly raping her.”
Jane Doe #2, the underage victim, was lured by Ramirez into his home so he could supposedly give her some paperwork relating to her job. “Once she entered the room, Ramirez is accused of locking the door and forcibly raping her. Ramirez is accused of threatening to report Jane Doe #2's undocumented immigration status is she reported the rape and warning that no one would believe her story. Directly following the attack, Jane Doe #2 told co-workers what happened and then reported the incident to the Costa Mesa Police Department.”
If convicted, Ramirez faces a maximum sentence of 60 years to life in state prison.
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).