Former college adjunct professor gets 8 years in prison for sexually abusing women from El Salvador

NEW YORK — A former City College chemistry adjunct professor was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for sexually abusing three women from El Salvador after convincing them to travel to the U.S. for a better life.

Jorge Alberto Ramos, 45, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Judge John G. Koeltl. He had pleaded guilty in August to four charges, including aiding and abetting human smuggling.

U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon said the abuse occurred over a decade. Prosecutors had requested that Ramos be sentenced to over 13 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Ramos, who was born in El Salvador and maintained relationships with family and friends in the San Miguel area, groomed the women to make the trip by expressing concern for their families and by sending them gifts and money.

But once they arrived, they were raped by Ramos, who told two of them that he had ''brought them to the United States so that he could have sex with them whenever he wanted,'' prosecutors wrote in court papers. ''And that is what he did — sexually abusing and raping each victim again and again.''

Prosecutors said he also threatened to turn them over to immigration authorities to compel them to have sex with him.

They said he first enticed a 25-year-old woman to come to the U.S. in 2013 or 2014, while a second woman, 27, came in November 2015. The third, they said, was 18 when she was persuaded to come to the U.S. in March 2017.

Authorities said Ramos convinced the women that they would have educational and other opportunities in the United States.

The indictment said the last two women eventually escaped Ramos.

City College has said Ramos hasn't worked at the school since 2009.

In court papers, prosecutors said Ramos was ''a serial sexual abuser who smuggled three vulnerable young women into the United States to use them for his own sexual gratification.''

They added: ''The defendant targeted these Victims because he knew that they were poor and had limited educational and job opportunities in El Salvador. He groomed them through gifts and kind words, leading them to believe that he cared about them and would help them improve their lives.''

Jeremy Schneider, a lawyer for Ramos who declined to comment after the sentencing, said in court papers that his client deserved leniency after living in ''hellish conditions'' at a federal lockup since his arrest 17 months ago.

He said Ramos lived the first 13 years of his life in El Salvador in a war zone where some of his childhood friends were killed before he was brought to the U.S. by a human smuggler.

After graduating from high school at age 16, he eventually earned his doctorate in biophysics before working as an adjunct professor at various colleges in New York City, besides working as a mechanic and electrician.

Ramos, who will be deported after he serves his sentence, is ''deeply remorseful,'' Schneider said.