NORWICH — Testifying against her own personal wishes, the former mistress of Ganesh R. Ramsaran described her nearly one-year affair in lurid detail Monday at the Chenango County Courthouse.
Six witnesses for the prosecution took the stand Monday in the trial of Ganesh R. Ramsaran, who is facing 25 years to life if the jury finds him guilty. According to the prosecution, Ramsaran killed his wife in late 2012.
Eileen Sayles, the woman named a “material witness” in the case, took the stand for at least three hours to recount her affair with Ramsaran who is charged with second degree murder in the death of his wife, Jennifer Ramsaran. In addition to Sayles, Jennifer Ramsaran’s mother, law enforcement employees involved in the case, and other individuals testified in the sixth day of the trial.
Sayles, the victim’s best friend and the woman the defendant had been sleeping with for approximately a year, became emotional a number of times during her testimony.
Sayles was arrested nearly a month and a half ago for criminal contempt for ignoring a summons compelling her to testify. “I don’t know your rules,” said Sayles to Garcia. “They came to my work in front of my coworkers … I just walked away.”
She was subpoenaed by the DA’s office.
Sayles said she had become friends with Jennifer in 2006 through their participation with the Girl Scouts.
Sayles said she began talking to Ramsaran on Facebook about quitting smoking, getting healthier, and he offered to let her use their gym in the basement.
Prior to 2012, Sayles said she didn’t have too much contact with the defendant. She estimated it was near February, 2012, when Ramsaran began coming down into the basement of the Ramsaran’s home to chit-chat while the friends worked out.
According to Sayles, Jennifer had a part-time job and when Jennifer wasn’t home, Sayles would go over. “We would have relations usually at the house when she wasn’t home,” she said.
Sayles said when Ramsaran would go to run in marathons, the family would usually go as whole. There were three or four occasions she said when Ramsaran would go on his running trips alone, and Jennifer would take care of the children.
When McBride asked Sayles about her relationship with Jennifer, she broke into tears and said, “We were close. I saw her every day.”
She then explained how the affair with Ramsaran began. “I was down in the basement and Jennifer was running late,” Sayles said. “I don’t recall completely how it happened. Remy came downstairs. He asked me if he could kiss me. He did.” She said they did not have sexual relations at that time.
McBride asked how often Ramsaran was interested in sexual relations with her. “All the time,” said Sayles. She said the two communicated in a sexual manner all the time, and it continued through her best friend’s disappearance.
Sayles recalled that Ramsaran professed his love for her, but couldn’t remember if it was on the phone or via text. They additionally discussed divorcing their respective spouses.
During cross-examination, Sayles testified that Ramsaran said he would make sure Jennifer was taken care of financially when divorced and wouldn’t leave her with anything to worry about.
Sayles said her relationship with Jennifer never changed.
Sayles recalled that in 2012, Ganesh Ramsaran told her that she was strong enough to leave her husband, that she didn’t need him and she deserved better.
In November of 2012, Sayles said she and Ramsaran got into an argument. She said she moved back in with her husband and Ramsaran wasn’t happy about it.
McBride presented an email that the defendant sent expressing his dissatisfaction with Sayles going back to her husband. The email was explicit. McBride read it to the jury. “You know I would have done everything and anything for you,” read McBride from the document.
Garcia pointed out to Sayles that the email was sent from his client’s email address to his client’s email address; not sent to Sayles’ email. She said she read the message but didn’t recall if she received it as an email or a text message.
“You might have read it,” said Garcia. “But that’s not your email address. It’s from him, to him.”
Sayles admitted she went back to Ramsaran on Dec. 10, 2012; one day before Jennifer went missing. She said they had relations that day in a car at Whaupaunaucau state land after taking her children to school, but could not recall anything else she did that day.
According to Sayles, she picked him up from the YMCA the following day after he called and said he ran down from the house but didn’t want to run back. She said she gave him a ride home and found it unusual that he did not invite her in to have relations, as Jennifer wasn’t home.
“He was really good about making you feel good about yourself,” said Sayles when probed about Ramsaran’s personality. “But he was also good at making you feel bad about yourself too.”
Said Sayles, “I’m at a loss for words. Remy was Remy.”
With regard to the defendant’s relationship with Jennifer, Sayles said she had never seen him blow up at her, but they did have arguments.
“He blew up at me,” said Sayles. “He was really loud. He talks you down. Makes you feel worthless.”
The day following Jennifer’s disappearance, Sayles admitted to going to the New Berlin Police Station to discuss Jennifer’s involvement with online gaming. She told Ramsaran about the man Jennifer chatted with through the game often — Rob — and said it was because she felt Jennifer cared for him. She said she asked Jennifer once when shopping, “Wouldn’t you be worried that someone would find out where you live?”
Sayles said she couldn’t remember what she did for the rest of the day following Jennifer’s disappearance. She said during that period she loved Ramsaran. Additionally, she said that Ramsaran not looking for Jennifer did not strike her as odd.
There were various questions asked of Sayles where her response was, “I can’t remember,” or “I can’t recall.” She said she couldn’t recall if she went to the Ramsaran residence the night before Jennifer disappeared.
She said she and the defendant often chatted on Facebook, text, and spoke over the phone. At one point, she said Ramsaran suggested she move in with him.
“I don’t know the dates. I don’t remember any of that,” said Sayles. “But he did want me to move in. He did want me to help take care of the kids.”
She recalled Ramsaran changing her mailing address to his house address. “I wasn’t getting it done fast enough so he did it on his own. He did it then told me he did it,” she said.
She said the defendant made an email account in the name of Eileen Ramsaran but could not recall if it was before or after the body was found. “He took it upon himself to do that,” Sayles said.
She told the jury she voluntarily gave Ramsaran her passwords to her Facebook and email account.
Sayles said they kept in contact even after his arrest and while he was incarcerated at the Chenango County Correctional Facility. “We discussed how I love him. He loves me. We love each other. We’d move. It was that over and over for the most part,” said Sayles.
Sayles said, “I was all he had, he was all I had.”
She said she then slowly stopped accepting his phone calls, and then he stopped calling.
According to Sayles, Ramsaran never hit, shoved, or showed any signs of domestic violence toward Jennifer. She said he never said anything that led her to believe he would hurt Jennifer.
“Is it true you didn’t want to testify in this case?” asked Garcia. Sayles said yes, and Garcia asked her to provide her reasoning.
“I didn’t want to sit here and do this,” Sayles said. “It’s personal, between him and I. But I didn’t have a choice.”
Caroline Renz, mother of the late Jennifer, was the first to take the stand Monday. As she is hard of hearing, the questions from the attorneys and anything said by the judge were displayed on a screen for her to see and then provide her reply.
“She’s my baby,” said Renz. “She was so easy to talk to. I miss her so. She loved her dogs and she loved her children. She was just so considerate and so loving.”
When asked by District Attorney Joseph McBride if Jennifer would ever leave her children, she told the jury she would not.
Renz added that the defendant and Jennifer argued a lot. “He was macho and the boss,” Renz said. “Everything had to be his way and she would argue.” She said Ramsaran would go out of town for runs — sometimes for a day, sometimes for a weekend — and Jennifer stayed home to take care of the children.
Renz — who lived in New York half of the year and Arizona half of the year — said she and Jennifer would email every day while in Arizona.
Renz recalled two days prior to the date Jennifer went missing. She said she was on the webcam with her grandchildren, then they disappeared and Jennifer showed up.
“Next thing I see Ganesh walk by and he said, ‘Okay, that’s it,’ and then she was gone. The webcam was closed,” said Renz. She said that she asked her daughter the following day, “What are you … under Gestapo order?”
That was the last time Renz spoke with her daughter.
Renz added that Ramsaran and the three children stayed with her and her husband while the law enforcement employees were searching their home after Jennifer went missing.
“Did you ever witness Mr. Ramsaran be physically abusive to your daughter,” asked Gilberto Garcia, counsel for the defendant.
Renz said no. She did say that he was constantly trying to impress her and her husband.
She recalled a time when they were leaving for Arizona and instead of saying goodbye to her and her husband, Ramsaran would “clench (Jennifer) and french kiss her right in front of us, when it was inappropriate.”
Renz said Ramsaran did not go out to look for her daughter.
“Is it a fact that Mr. Ramsaran found Jennifer’s phone, and isn’t it a fact that your husband found the van?” Garcia asked a follow-up question to Renz, but McBride objected and it was sustained by Chenango County Court Judge Frank B. Revoir Jr.
Autumne Arotsky, an acquaintance of the Ramsarans through her job as a bank teller, took the stand briefly to tell the jury that when she went to the Ramsaran home after Jennifer’s disappearance. Toward the end of a two- to three-hour conversation, Ramsaran asked her why she never had a three-way sexual relationship with himself, his wife, and Arotsky.
Arotsky said she felt uncomfortable after Ramsaran’s sexual comment. Garcia asked what made Arotsky, the family’s bank teller, go to the defendant’s house that day. “I wanted to check and see how the kids were doing,” she said, while also dropping off cookies.
Throughout the visit she said Ramsaran talked about Jennifer being missing, showed photos and head shots of Jennifer, and said that she may have met someone online. She said he told her what law enforcement had been telling him about the case. “I was mainly there to listen,” Arotsky said.
She described as knowing the family mainly through the bank, but Garcia brought up a time when Arotsky and Jennifer went to see a psychic together.
Arotsky said she got a call after the body was found asking her to watch the kids because Ramsaran said he might have to go to the police station to talk to law enforcement. She said her and the defendant texted off and on about updates on the case.
• Sergeant Tonya Shoales with the CCSO testified next with regard to recorded telephone conversations between Sayles and Ramsaran. Calls are recorded —except calls to attorneys — between inmates in the CCCF and whoever accepts the inmate’s collect call.
Shoales said the stack of papers entered as an exhibit were the telephone records of Ramsaran. The records show who he called, when, the date, and the length of the call.
Additionally, discs were entered into evidence of recordings of conversations.
Garcia questioned the authority she had to check into phone records, and she said it was policy and procedure, and that McBride requested the records be obtained.
• CCSO deputy Kelly Hayner was last to take the stand Monday and was the woman to physically pick up Jennifer’s phone and place it into an evidence bag, and she said she also went up to her father’s land on Center Road in Pharsalia in February of 2013 and located a dead body that she identified as a female, sticking out of the snow, down an embankment.
Hayner said she waited on the scene until on-duty deputies arrived, and until Lt. Richard Cobb arrived a couple of hours after calling him to notify that a dead body was found.
After that interaction, she said she has had no involvement in the case.
Witnesses for the prosecution will continue to testify Tuesday.