Polebridge artist gets 10 years

Saying he didn’t believe Ted Ramon had taken responsibility for his actions and made things worse by blaming his 10-year-old victim, Flathead County District Court Judge Robert Allison sentenced the North Fork artist on Oct. 29 to 10 years in prison with four suspended on a single count of sexual abuse of children.

Noting that the controversial case began in 2011 and was continued six times, Allison explained that Ramon had faced a minimum of 25 years in prison if convicted of the initial charges. Allison said he expected Ramon would have lost at trial, and Allison would have been forced to give Ramon, 56, what would have amounted to “a death sentence.”

“Fortunately we don’t have to do that now,” he said.

Allison said he believes Ramon pleaded guilty to the amended charge “to reduce his exposure to the harsher sentence,” but with a prison sentence that includes mandatory sexual offender counseling, Ramon now will have to take some accountability for what he did. There will be no parole restrictions, so Ramon’s stay in prison could be short.

“You will be able to return to your family in a reasonable time,” Allison said.

Allison said he believed Ramon’s actions were “sexual in nature,” despite the claims of his defense attorney, Jack Quatman, and defense witnesses that Ramon was trying to educate the young girl. Allison designated Ramon a Level 1 sex offender.

In response to Ramon’s claims about depending on food stamps and fuel assistance, Allison waived his fines and fees but ordered him to pay up to $1,500 for the victim’s counseling costs. When he is released, Ramon will be allowed to possess bear spray, because of bear activity in the North Fork, and he may have a cell phone, but without Internet access.

Sex photos

According to court documents, the sexual abuse incidents occurred between June 1 and July 18, 2011. The young girl, who lived in a house on Ramon’s property 10 miles north of Polebridge, told detectives that Ramon had showed her pornographic magazines and videos, talked to her about sexual acts, offered her cigars, alcohol and drugs, and told her not to tell anyone about what had happened between them or else he would go to jail.

When interviewed by Sgt. Jeanne Parker, Ramon allegedly admitted to taking photos of the girl with her pants down and explaining sexual activities to her. Ramon allegedly called Parker later and said he was angry the girl had not been arrested and charged for her role in the incidents. He allegedly said that if the girl had not come on to him, the incidents never would have happened.

Testifying on the stand, Parker said Ramon admitted in a July 28, 2011 interview to taking about nine photos of the girl in sexual poses and printing two that he said he intended to show the mother to prove that the girl was acting inappropriately. Ramon told Parker he deleted the photos from his computer and destroyed the two prints without showing them to the mother.

On Sept. 28, 2011, Jimmy Weg, an agent with the Montana Department of Justice and the state’s top computer investigator, said he could find no child pornography photos or photos of the young girl in a sexual pose after going through all the computers, hard drives, thumb drives and flash cards found at Ramon’s property.

Artistically enhanced sexual photos of Ramon’s wife when she was in her 20s were found on the computer, and pornographic magazines were found in various buildings around the Ramon property, including a magazine called “Barely Legal Babysitters,” according to Parker.

Witnesses speak

Allison acknowledged receiving numerous letters for and against Ramon. The case attracted marchers with signs after an initial plea deal called for no prison time or probation at all, and the case had made a big impact on the small rural community around Polebridge.

Seven people testified in Ramon’s defense, with many saying they couldn’t believe Ramon was guilty of the charge and that Ramon was a loving, caring, kind, generous and compassionate friend and father.

When one woman said she would trust Ramon with her three daughters, prosecutor Travis Ahner asked if she would be comfortable finding out that Ramon had told her 10-year-old daughter how to masturbate and taken sexually explicit photos of her.

The woman responded by saying she was against child pornography, but there was much more to the story. She said the victim had acted provocatively — a young girl coming of age, trying to express her beauty in an inappropriate way, who got angry when Ramon shut her down.

“Could Ramon have shut her down without shooting the photos?” Ahner asked.

Ahner also read a short letter from the victim’s mother, who wanted Allison to impose a lengthy sentence. She said her daughter had been impacted by Ramon’s actions and now was uncomfortable being around any males.

“Ted took it upon himself to educate her,” the mother said, saying it was time to take one more pedophile out of the community.

Responsibility

In sentencing Ramon, Allison cited a three-page flyer with photos of the victim called “In My Defense” that Ramon distributed to North Fork residents in August 2013. Ramon described the victim as “very curious, precocious and sometimes devious” and “very intelligent beyond her years.”

“I am a good man, I am not that monster,” Ramon said in the flyer.

Ahner said the flyer showed Ramon did not take responsibility for his actions and blamed the victim. Beyond that were all the pornography at his property and Ramon’s admission to Dr. Michael Scolatti, a sex offender specialist, that Ramon had sexually assaulted his four-year-old niece when he was 16.

Ahner said he didn’t feel Ramon should go to prison until he was in his 80s, but “he took a big portion of a young girl’s life away and should have a small portion of his life taken away.” He called for a 10-year sentence with no parole restrictions.

Quatman pointed out that the second conversation between Ramon and Parker about charging the victim was not recorded and that investigators had found no evidence of child pornography at Ramon’s property.

He also sharply criticized the probation department’s pre-sentence investigation report, asking that it be thrown out and redone, and noted that Dr. Scolatti had not recommended Ramon be incarcerated. Quatman asked for a six-year deferred sentence.