Sean Ramaley Acquitted by Jury
January 6th, 2010 | by BGuzzardi |
Sean Ramaley, at his arrest July 2008, found innocent December 2009.Presumption of innocence has real meaning.
The first Bonusgate to be tried was acquitted yesterday. I followed the trial by Twitter. There were two, seemingly unrelated people giving very frequent, and accurate, reports. Their posts were consistent with news articles in Tribune-Review and Post-Gazette. From what I read there was what little evidence that Sean Ramaley did not show up for his state job came from a very tainted witness, Steve Webb. Sean Ramaley’s mom and his priest and other character witnesses testified and seemed credible to the Twitters. Sean Ramaley’s mom and dad were in the courtroom and even I could feel the emotion through Twitter posts. This was weakest of the cases and Sean Ramaley was more passive than active planner. The picture of Sean Ramaley in handcuffs and the humiliation of the arrest must have been devastating to his parents. It does seem to me that there was no evidence that Sean Ramaley broke the law in any way. He was, innocently, caught up with a bad crowd. Lessons for us all.
Tracie Mauriello of the Post-Gazette captures the essence of the defense and their high emotion:
“His wife, meanwhile, burst into joyful tears and hugged her father, who was seated next to her in the front row. His mother, Christine Ramaley, who at points during the trial clutched rosary beads, also broke down in tears and leaned into the arms of her husband Arthur.
At least two members of his defense team cried, too.
Mr. Ramaley, who did not testify in his own defense, emerged from the courtroom triumphant. “Vindicated,” he told reporters outside the courtroom.
“I did work. I did my job. I worked as hard as I could,” he said of his six months of part-time employment in the Beaver Falls district office of former state Rep. Mike Veon.
His defense team brought in a parade of character witnesses, including a priest and a police chief, and called former co-workers who testified that they trained Mr. Ramaley to use the office computer system and that they saw him help at least three constituents.”