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More Details On Cops Arrested In Luis Ramirez Murder

Posted December 17, 2009 by Patrick Young, Esq.

The arrest of more than half the small police for of Shenandoah, Pa. on charges growing out of the alleged cover-up of the killing of Luis Ramirez has added many details to the picture I painted last spring of cops ignoring and then concealing a hate crime. The local Republican Herald covered yesterday’s bail hearing for the four police, and painted a picture of corruption that went far beyond one killing. And the corruption started at the top with police chief Matt Nestor.
The four officers were brought before U.S. District Judge Malachy Mannion on Wednesday in Philly. The bail hearing for Nestor, Capt. Jamie Gennarini, Lt. William Moyer and Officer Jason Hayes left the chief in jail until the trial with the other three being released to home confinement. According to the Republican Herald:
Nestor, Moyer and Hayes face a federal indictment for impeding the investigation into a group of teenagers who participated in the beating death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico. In a separate indictment, Nestor and Gennarini are accused of extorting illegal gambling cash.
The prosecutor laid out several details of the case at the hearing, alledging that:
- Nestor “coordinated, led and permitted” the cover-up of the homicide investigation despite knowing he was already being probed by the FBI for the extortion case. In the extortion case, he allegedly took a witness in the woods, made him strip naked and threatened him. Nestor’s dialogue was recorded on an FBI wiretap.
- Moyer was the first officer who arrived at the homicide scene and met with the 911 caller. Rather than chase the suspects, he let them go and threatened the witness by pointing his electronic stun gun at the person’s head.
- Hayes, boyfriend of the mother of one of the teen suspects, targeted relatives of witnesses of the beating. He arrested a witness for loitering and prowling at nighttime while the witness was legally entering an acquaintance’s home. Hayes then took the person to a police department in another town to be charged on Hayes’ allegedly bogus claims.
- Gennarini told federal officials he has not used drugs in 18 years, but federal officials have learned he recently had a 20-year-old girlfriend for six months whom he supplied with alcohol, marijuana and cocaine and that he was a regular marijuana user.
During his presentation, Gibson also identified Hayes’ girlfriend, Tammy Piekarsky, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. She is the mother of Brandon J. Piekarsky.
Prosecutors said the homicide trial was stymied by the three officers charged in the cover-up.
Prior to the hearing, federal probations officials provided Mannion with detention recommendations. Probation officials recommended Nestor be jailed to await trial, while the others be released with conditions.
Mannion said the allegations depict a “vile set of activities,” with Nestor’s alleged crimes particularly “heinous.” He said all the officers have ever known are local courts, but warned they now face justice in the federal system.
“You have now made it to the major leagues in the only place someone doesn’t want to make it to the major leagues,” Mannion said.
In speaking to Moyer, Hayes and Gennarini, Mannion called the charges “most serious” and noted the evidence is “strong.” They face decades in prison. However, he said he believes they could be prevented from hampering the case by setting stringent rules, which included home confinement with electronic monitoring. Mannion ordered they can only leave their homes to seek employment, for religious services, medical appointments, and meeting with lawyers. He also set various other conditions, such as prohibiting contact with those involved in the case.
Mannion warned them that if they violate any of his rules, “you will go directly to jail and sit there until your case is done.”
“You may be surprised how good the federal court is in making sure people don’t violate conditions,” Mannion said.
Since Nestor was named in two indictments, his case was conducted last.
Gibson told the judge that Nestor has an “utter, brazen disregard” for the law and “represents a threat to the community, witnesses and the integrity of the law enforcement system.” He said Nestor was a flight risk, considering his penchant for international travel, with recent trips to Canada, Mexico and Morocco.
“This individual cannot remain on the streets,” Gibson said.
In addition to the cover-up charges, Nestor is also accused of conspiring to collect cash payouts from illegal gambling operations in the Shenandoah area for years. Nestor and Gennarini allegedly tried to extort $2,000 from a local businessman and his family in exchange for releasing the man from custody.
Mannion peppered Nestor with criticism, saying the allegations against him were the worst.
“Although they are all heinous, yours go further,” he said.
“If the allegations are true, you have been a danger to the community for a long period of time,” Mannion said.
Mannion ordered Nestor jailed until his trial, although his attorney has vowed to appeal. He was lodged Wednesday night in the Lackawanna County Prison.
The Republican Herald has a follow-up article giving still more details about the cover-up:
Minutes after the last kick and punch were thrown in a fatal beating in a public park in Shenandoah on a summer night in 2008, the cover-up began, federal prosecutors say.
Instead of investigating the vicious beating of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala, police officers of the borough helped the young men conceal evidence and concoct a less-damaging version of what happened that night, advising the group that they “needed to get their stories straight” because the man they had just beaten might die, according to an indictment.
The Mexican immigrant’s last conscious moments were spent hearing “Go back to Mexico” and “Tell your Mexican friends to get the (expletive) out of Shenandoah.”
Ramirez died two days later.
What the officers and their police chief allegedly did that night and in the following weeks and months emerged in a closer reading of the indictments unsealed Tuesday. In the court papers, prosecutors lay out alleged plots that sound like a script for a bad cop movie, ranging from cover-ups to extortions schemes, to shakedowns of bookies, all set in an insular town where everyone knows just about everyone.
One of the officers, Jason Hayes, was the boyfriend of the mother of Brandon J. Piekarsky, one of the young men involved in the beating.
Another officer, police Chief Matthew Nestor, was good friends with the same woman. He had vacationed with her.
A third officer, Lt. William Moyer, also had a personal relationship with one of the men who beat Ramirez. Moyer’s son played football with football players involved in the beating.
If the three officers are convicted, their story could end with them going to federal prison for 20 years.
The story began as Hayes and Moyer arrived on the scene and detained one of the people who called 911, who identified the teens who beat Ramirez, according to the indictment. The officers stopped the teens, then let them go, prosecutors said.
There was a moment early on when the alleged plot could have been defused, according to the indictment, when an unnamed borough official told Nestor that the investigation should not be conducted by the borough police “because of the identities of the suspects” involved in the beating. But Nestor told the official his department would continue to handle the case, the indictment states.
The officers did interview an eyewitness to the beating, the indictment states, but the officers “deliberately mischaracterized” the witness’ account in their official reports to exculpate Piekarsky’s role in the beating.
In reviewing Moyer’s investigation, the grand jury said his official report included “false and misleading” information.
The manufactured story began to take shape shortly after the attack when the young men gathered at the home of Derrick M. Donchak, one of the teens involved in the beating, the indictment states. At the house, they were advised through Hayes’ girlfriend that they needed to “get their stories straight” because Hayes had warned that Ramirez’s condition was deteriorating, “which could result in a homicide investigation.”
In the following weeks, Moyer called one of the parents of the teens involved in the beating, advising them to “dispose of the sneakers he wore during the assault” on Ramirez, the indictment states.
Piekarsky, Donchak and Colin J. Walsh were later charged in connection with the beating. Walsh pleaded guilty to federal charges.
Nestor, Hayes and Moyer were charged with conspiracy and falsifying documents. Moyer is also charged with witness tampering, destroying evidence and lying to the FBI.
In addition to those charges, Nestor and his second-in-command, Capt. Jamie Gennarini, were charged with extortion for allegedly shaking down illegal gambling operations and demanding a $2,000 payment from a local businessman in 2007 to release him from their custody.

The nearby Wilkes-Barre Times Leader said in an editorial that “We can say with confidence that the five men from neighboring Schuylkill County will get fairer treatment by federal authorities than Ramirez received from the Shenandoah Police Department.” The editorial also noted that petitions from people like readers of this blog helped to pressure the Feds into investigating this cover-up.

Tags : hate crimes, luis ramirez

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