Netflix’s Worst Ex Ever Episode 2: The Full Story of Jerry Ramrattan

This article contains spoilers for Worst Ex Ever episode 2.

Seemona Sumasar spent seven months in jail for a crime she didn’t commit. The only offense she was guilty of was pressing charges against the manipulative ex-boyfriend who violently raped her, a supposed NYPD police detective named Jerry Ramrattan. The explosive second episode of the Blumhouse-produced Netflix true crime show Worst Ex Ever, “Betrayed by the Badge,” tells a twisted story of abuse, incompetence, and corruption. Four people alleged robberies in Queens and Long Island, each offering a little more detail than the last. One saw nothing, just a woman with a badge, a gun, and long dark hair. One got a partial license plate; the other, a full license plate. When Seemona was taken into custody by Nassau County police and held in a Long Island jail, she was identified by one of the robbery victims.

Turns out, none of these robberies actually happened. Seemona Sumasar lost her family home, her fast food franchise, and her daughter as a result of a well-crafted conspiracy created whole cloth in the mind of one terrible person. 

The police reports? Fake. The witnesses? Threatened, coerced, bribed, and bullied into telling their story by Jerry Ramrattan. The crimes? Completely invented by a man who watched a lot of CSI and police procedurals. But it was more than just creative fiction from the twisted mind of an abuser. And Jerry Ramrattan had more alleged victims than just Seemona Sumasar according to a 2011 New York Times article. 

While Jerry Ramrattan told people he was a cop of some description, that wasn’t the case. He was, however, a private investigator who ran a firm called Most Wanted Inc. out of Queens, and he used his knowledge of law enforcement as a weapon against people who had offended him, or his clients, in some way.

The allegations tell a story going back to the early ‘90s of a man clever enough to weaponize the police with the right motivation, or for the right price. One of the allegations was that a man spent time in jail in 2009 after Ramrattan fabricated robbery allegations because the man owed one of Ramrattan’s friends money. The man was released after he proved he was at a trade show at the time the robbery was said to have taken place. Another man was framed by Ramrattan for a hit-and-run accident in 2007 after the framing victim’s wife had hired Ramrattan’s private detective firm to investigate her husband. 

However, the craziest, and earliest, story comes from a Queens businessman named Richard Persaud. Persaud was arrested on an attempted murder charge in 1993 brought about by the testimony of Jerry Ramrattan. According to Persaud, Jerry Ramrattan accused him of attempted murder by telling police that Persaud shot Ramrattan in the chest through the open sunroof of his automobile. Ramrattan did spend time in the hospital with chest wounds, a collapsed lung, and a broken shoulder, but Persaud maintains that Ramrattan either had someone shoot him in the chest or shot himself in the chest to frame Persaud for the crime. 

Persaud pled guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree assault and spent six months in jail for a crime he maintains he didn’t commit. Persaud believes that Ramrattan fabricated the shooting because, at the time, one of Persaud’s cousins had started dating Ramrattan and Mr. Persaud told that cousin not to date Ramrattan. Persaud pled guilty to the lesser charge on the advice of his lawyer to spare his first-generation immigrant family from bankruptcy via drawn-out court proceedings. 

Voluntarily getting shot, even with a bullet-proof vest or some other sort of protection, makes the whole story sound crazy enough for a Dick Wolf show. However, the end result of Ramrattan’s accusation against Richard Persaud gives the whole thing some plausibility. He allegedly framed Persaud for a serious crime and used the legal system as a weapon to get revenge for a perceived slight. That isn’t far off from what Ramrattan attempted to do to Seemona Sumasar, herself a first-generation immigrant, and the other people who came forward to tell their story at the time of Ramrattan’s arrest and sentencing. 

Even after Jerry Ramrattan was convicted of ten felony charges, including rape, perjury, and conspiracy in 2012, he still had supporters in the audience who yelled at Sumasar and called her a liar for her testimony. His mother had to be removed from the courtroom after an outburst. Despite everything, he had connections and supporters. Ramrattan used his sentencing hearing to make one last threat against Sumasar. Shortly before finding out about his 32-year vacation courtesy of the State of New York prison system, Ramrattan ominously told the court, “I maintain my innocence and plan on turning over motions and other paperwork about Ms. Sumasar. I’m not done.”

Given Ramrattan’s masterful use of the law to exact revenge on others for fun and profit, he remains a threat to turn the system on his enemies even from behind bars. In 2022, Ramrattan sued the State of New York Department of Corrections for various civil rights violations. The case was dismissed.

All four episodes of Worst Ex Ever are available to stream on Netflix now.