Convicted murderer faces Oct. sentencing

Sept. 30--The sentencing of convicted murderer Ganesh "Remy" Ramsaran of South New Berlin has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 31 in Chenango County Court, officials said Monday.

Ramsaran, a former IBM program manager, was convicted last Tuesday of second-degree murder in connection with the Dec. 11, 2012 killing of his wife, Jennifer, after the jury that heard testimony in the trial deliberated for a little more than three hours.

Ramsaran, 39, adamantly denied having anything to do with the murder, insisting he last saw his wife when she left the family's residence that morning to go shopping at a mall near Syracuse.

Prosecution evidence at the trial contradicted his alibi that he went for a jog to the Norwich YMCA that day, with Chenango District Attorney Joseph McBride arguing that Ramsaran instead abandoned his wife's body in Pharsalia, ditched her iPhone in Plymouth and left her van in Norwich before walking to the YMCA.

McBride contended the motive for the murder was Ramsaran's desire to collect on a $200,000 life insurance policy on his wife and to start a new life with his mistress, Eileen Sayles, of Norwich. Sayles testified at the trial as a reluctant witness for the prosecution, and acknowledged she and Ramsaran had a tryst in a parked vehicle one day before Jennifer Ramsaran, a mother of three young children, was reported missing by her husband.

The maximum sentence for second-degree murder in New York is 25 years to life in state prison. The minimum sentence for the crime is 15 years to life.

The sentence will be imposed by County Judge Frank Revoir Jr., who presided over the trial.

Ramsaran was represented at the trial by attorney Gil Garcia of West New York, N.J.

One of the jurors, Pastor Mitch Mullenax of the Common Grounds Baptist Fellowship in Beaver Meadow, told The Daily Star after the guilty verdict was rendered that consistencies in Ramsaran's statements to police were key factors in the jury's rejection of his testimony.

A community support group called "Justice for Jennifer" said on its Facebook page Monday afternoon that on the day of Ganesh Ramsaran's sentencing, its members will meet at the Pharsalia site where Jennifer's body was recovered -- property where a memorial to the victim has been created -- and release balloons.

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