(Trinidad Guardian) NEW YORK—A Queens judge sentenced three members of a Richmond Hill family to serve a combined 418 years in jail for a brazen immigration and real-estate scam. The couple and their daughter, all originally from Trinidad and Tobago and dubbed “The Ramsundar Gang” by Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder, were found guilty of defrauding 19 families of US$1.8 million over six years.
Holder said his harsh sentences were nothing compared to the street justice the Ramsundar family would have faced back in their native T&T. He said: “You and I know that if you did this fraud and paraded and strutted it in your own country, you would have probably been hacked to death,” Holder told the family, which immigrated from T&T in the ’90s.
Shane Ramsundar, 53, wife, Gomatee, 47, and daughter, Shantel, 24, were found guilty of grand larceny, money laundering, criminal impersonation and other charges during a three-month trial. Holder had no sympathy for any of them. The tough judge even had one of their victims, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, stand up in court so Shane could see him.
