Jury finds Ramon guilty

Francisco Javier Ramon, Jr.

Francisco Javier Ramon, Jr., 25, of Bloomfield, was found guilty by a six-member jury which returned a verdict in Greene Superior Court on Wednesday night to conclude a two-day trial.

Ramon was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated in a manner which endangered a person, but this was not the first time he's been accused of drunk driving.

He was convicted in an earlier case filed in 2004 following a tragic crash in 2003 in which one man was killed.

Early on a Monday morning in October 2003, Ramon, then 19, was driving a 1993 Nissan with two passengers in the car.

They all were employed at El Ranchito restaurant in Bloomfield and were en route to the restaurant from Bedford where they had spent the night at a friend's house. Ramon told an investigator he had been up until about 6:30 a.m. then slept a couple of hours before getting behind the wheel.

Indiana State Police Trooper Eric Russell worked the scene of the crash. His report stated the accident occurred about 10:10 a.m. on State Road 58 in Jackson Township about two miles west of SR 45 and the Bloomington gate to NSWC Crane. Ramon's car reportedly veered left, crossed the center line at a high rate of speed and slammed head-on into a 1998 Jeep driven by a Newberry woman.

The front seat passenger in Ramon's vehicle, Jose Baltazar Gomez Osorio of Bloomfield, was pronounced dead on the scene of massive head and chest injuries.

All others involved received injuries ranging from minor to critical but all lived.

A witness to the crash said Ramon had been traveling very fast. Then he saw smoke and glass flying and afterwards, he saw Ramon crawling out of the window. The shaken witness said he then looked in the window of Ramon's car and "it was real bad."

Osorio and Ramon's other passenger had to be extricated from the twisted Nissan.

ISP Trooper Eric Nash investigated the crash and Ramon was criminally charged in February 2004.

The probable cause affidavit stated the results of lab tests showed Ramon tested positive for marijuana and alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.

Ramon was convicted on Oct. 15, 2005 of operating a vehicle while intoxicated resulting in death.

The latest case filed against Ramon dates back to an incident on June 17, 2008 in Bloomfield.

Deputy Marshal Jordan Hasler of the Bloomfield Police Department worked an accident around 1:46 a.m. in which a black Chevrolet car was off the road, nose down in a steep ditch on the southeast side of State Road 231 south of the downtown area, just north of the railroad tracks.

According to the probable cause affidavit filed when Ramon was charged, there were skid marks where the car had left the side of the road but no one was inside the vehicle when the officer arrived.

Ramon was determined to have been the driver and when the officer located him in a residence nearby, he reported a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage on Ramon's breath and that his eyes were bright red and his balance was off.

Ramon was taken into custody and transported to the Greene County Jail but the officer reported Ramon was combative on the way and kicked and damaged the back door glass of the patrol car.

Ramon was also reportedly uncooperative at the jail and refused to take a chemical test.

Hasler wrote in the affidavit that he was going to apply for a search warrant to take a blood test, but Ramon was hitting the glass and yelling at officers at the jail. Due to this aggressive behavior, in the best interest of EMTs and officers, a blood test was not taken.

The trial started Tuesday morning with the selection of a six-member jury with one alternate juror.

Greene County Deputy Prosecutor Keven McIntosh represented the state and defense attorney David Hunter represented Ramon as a public defender.

During the trial, the jury was not told about Ramon's previous conviction or about the crash in which Osorio died.

The jury went into deliberations around 10:40 a.m. on Wednesday but in the afternoon reported they were having difficulty reaching a unanimous verdict.

They returned to the jury room and late in the day, they returned a verdict of guilty of the charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated in a manner which endangered a person, which is a class A misdemeanor.

Evidence of Ramon's previous conviction was then presented to the jury and they were asked to enhance the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony.

Early in the evening, the jury found Ramon guilty of the class D felony charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated in a manner which endangered a person with a prior conviction for operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

Following the verdict, Superior Court Judge Dena Martin remanded Ramon to the custody of a Greene County Sheriff's Deputy to be incarcerated.

Ramon was booked into jail where he's being held without bond pending sentencing which is scheduled at 10 a.m. on Nov. 10.