Jerry Ramrattan was always obsessed with shows like Law & Order and CSI, Seemona Sumasar recalls. So when she pressed rape charges against him, he allegedly hatched a TV-worthy plot, framing Sumasar for robbery, the 36-year-old Wall Street analyst tells the New York Times. It's her first extensive interview since being released from jail. Over the course of several months Ramrattan allegedly convinced three separate shop owners to call in bogus robberies, with each dropping clues that would slowly lead to Sumasar.
When Sumasar was pulled over and arrested, she had no idea what was going on—but she instantly suspected Ramrattan. “From the beginning, I said he made it up,” she says. “I never thought my life would become a cop film.” Sumasar spent seven months in jail awaiting trial, before being released in December. “We prosecute tens of thousands of cases each year, but in the collective memory, no one has ever seen anything like this before,” says the Queens DA. Ramrattan is now in jail for allegedly cooking up the fraud. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges along with the rape charges. In an ironic twist, his defense is that Sumasar framed him. (More frame-up stories.)