Accessory in Bensonhurst cop’s murder sentenced to two more years after being granted parole

BENSONHURST — She was granted parole 20 years after the cold-blooded murder of an NYPD officer. Now, she is going back to prison for two years.

On Friday, Dec. 20, Betsy Ramos, who was convicted of manslaughter in the 1998 slaying of Police Officer Anthony Mosomillo, a Bensonhurst native, received an additional two years in prison as Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis handed down the statutory maximum sentence in charges that Ramos had violated the federal supervised release sentence she was serving at the time of Mosomillo’s murder.

Mosomillo, who was assigned to the 67th Precinct,  was killed on May 26, 1998, when he and his partner went into an apartment in East Flatbush to arrest Ramos’ boyfriend Jose Serrano on a drug-related warrant. 

Serrano was hiding in a closet. The officers found him and following a confrontation, Serrano grabbed Mosomillo’s partner’s gun, shooting Mosomillo four times. Mosomillo turned and shot and killed Serrano before dying. Ramos was prosecuted for helping Serrano get the gun away from the cop.

Ramos was sentenced  in state court to 15 years to life for manslaughter in the second degree with respect to Mosomillo’s death; she also received a seven year sentence for assault in the second degree for attacking Mosomillo’s partner, Police Officer Miriam Torres, during the fatal confrontation.

On Dec. 10, Ramos — who, as CBS 2 News first reported, had been granted parole in November without the Mosomillo family having been previously informed or given the opportunity to address the Parole Board — was released from state custody and transferred to federal custody. In front of Garaufis, she pleaded guilty to violating her sentence.

Garaufis then asked federal prosecutors to obtain and submit victim impact statements from Mosomillo’s family, according to the New York City Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York (PBA).

Following the sentencing, Mosomillo’s widow Margaret addressed the media, holding a photo of late husband .

“I want to thank the judge for allowing us the opportunity to be heard and for keeping Anthony’s killer off the streets for a while longer,” she said. “It is incredibly hard to keep reliving our pain and reopening old wounds but we have no choice … The Parole Board has been unspeakably cruel in the way they treated us. They let out a cop killer. They can let out anybody and they will. Something has to change. People in power need to stop standing up for criminals and start standing up for crime victims.”

PBA President Patrick Lynch concurred, thanking Garaufis and the U.S. attorney “for doing the job that the Parole Board didn’t have the courage to do. Our only regret is [that] she can only be sentenced for two more years. So, the public has to be careful because in two years, this repeat misfit will be out on the streets. We warn our federal marshals, our court officers, all that work in the prison, be careful. We are sending you a cop killer, one who has crocodile tears in her eyes with no sorrow in her heart.

“The victims’ impact statements should’ve been heard by the state Parole Board, but we heard them today and there wasn’t a dry eye in those pews,” Lynch added.

“We know Anthony was a hero,” he went on. “We knew it when he died. We knew it when we shouldered him and brought him into that church on his last day, but there are a number of heroes in that family, heroes that live everyday with this pain that doesn’t go away. Their courage and strength gives these police officers, other line-of-duty families, the strength to go on.”