This Week's Most Ratchet Crimes in America

The word "ratchet" may be played out, but until the Internet agrees upon a more accurate description for these crimes, it will have to do. These stories are sad, imaginative, and they inspire us to have conversations about race, class, and the American dream. 

This week's roundup includes a pervy Uber driver, a diamond traded for weed, and the killing of 900 chickens with a golf club. Each crime is rated on our Ratchet Meter, a base-10 logarithmic scale modeled after a similar system developed by Charles Richter—except that the Ratchet Meter has nothing to do with science because it's not actually a real thing. 

Read on for the best of the worst ratchet crimes in America. Proceed with caution, stay safe, don't try this at home, and send your tips to cityguidetips@complex.com.

And for your viewing pleasure, here's the latest episode of Ratchet News Network with The Kid Mero:

Date: 9/19/2014

Location: Florida

Crime: Sexual Misconduct

Ratchet Meter: 8

Earlier this week, an Uber driver was arrested in Florida for allegedly groping a female passenger.

The Smoking Gun reports that on Sep. 19, 28-year-old Ramy Botros was driving the 25-year-old victim to her boyfriend's Orlando home when he kept mentioning how attractive she was. After that, Botros went into full creep mode:

At one point, the woman told cops, Botros stopped his Honda Civic and placed his hand down the front of her tank top and “touched her breasts in an aggressive manner.” The victim, police added, “was not wearing an undershirt or bra, so his hand touched her directly on her breast.”

The woman threatened to strike Botros if he persisted, even recording part of their encounter on her phone. When Botros was arrested on Wednesday, the Egyptian immigrant told police that if a girl was dressed the way the victim was in Egypt, it essentially meant she was “asking for it.”

That didn't help his case much (or at all), and he was charged with battery.

[via The Smoking Gun]

Date: 9/28/2014

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Crime: Stealing people's mail

Ratchet Meter: 10

During a bout of depression and alcoholism, a Brooklyn USPS worker reportedly neglected to deliver 40,000 pieces of mail, keeping them for himself instead.

The New York Post reports that Joseph Brucato, 67, confessed to hoarding mail intended for Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood since 2005. The Post adds that Brucato shoved roughly 2,500 pounds worth of mail in his vehicle, post office locker, and home. It took authorities over five hours to remove mail from his apartment in Flatlands.

According to the Post, the alarming number of undelivered letters in Brucato's car let a superior know there was a serious problem at hand:

A postal supervisor became suspicious that Brucato was up to something weird when he noticed his personal car was stuffed with undelivered letters, the complaint said.

Brucato has been suspended with pay since the discovery. If convicted, he could face up to five years behind bars.

[via New York Post]

Date: 9/27/2014

Location: Joliet, Illinois

Crime: Murder

Ratchet Meter: 9

Joshua Miner, Alisa Massaro, Alan Landerman, and Bethany McKee were all charged with murdering Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover in Joliet, Ill. last January. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a police interview where the suspects explained what happened was played in court yesterday. Miner said the initial plan was to rob Rankins and Glover, but that McKee refused at the last minute. He also explained that having sex in close proximity to the bodies was Massaro's idea:

She’s like, Let’s have sex, Miner said in the video. And I was like, Let’s have sex on the bodies.

Later he said it was not on them, but next to them. Nevertheless, performance issues got in the way, he said.

According to the Sun-Times, Miner and Massaro eventually realized that what they were doing was “weird” (or downright disgusting), and they were unable to continue having sex. Massaro was sentenced to 10-years in prison after pleading guilty to robbery and concealing homicidal death. What's more, she agreed to testify against Miner, Landerman, and McKee.

This is all very disturbing.

[via Chicago Sun-Times]

Date: 10/1/2014

Location: Ohio

Crime: Wrong sperm donor

Ratchet Meter: 8

An Ohio woman has filed a lawsuit against a sperm bank after she was accidentally given vials of sperm from a black donor.

NBC News reports that in 2011, Jennifer Cramblett was under the impression that she was was getting sperm from a white man. However, a lawsuit filed at the Cook County Circuit Court claims that the Midwest Sperm Bank sent her the wrong sperm donation, leaving her with the last thing she expected to have: a biracial daughter.

Cramblett's attorney, Thomas Intili, told NBC News that the mistake has complicated her life, as well as the life her 2-year-old daughter, Payton. “She lives in an all-white community in eastern Ohio,” he explained. “She did not encounter any African-American people until she entered college. Not all her friends and family members are racially sensitive.” So much for acceptance.

Intili adds that one of Cramblett's biggest struggles thus far has been tending to her daughter's hair: “To get a decent cut, Jennifer must travel to a black neighborhood, far from where she lives, where she is obviously different in appearance, and not overtly welcome.”

The mistake happened when an “8” on the donor number was mistaken as a “3.” What's truly disturbing is how horrified Cramblett is about basically being stuck with a black child:

Jennifer was crying, confused and upset. All of the thought, care and planning that she and [her partner] Amanda had undertaken to control their baby's parentage had been rendered meaningless. In an instant, Jennifer's excitement and anticipation of her pregnancy was replaced with anger, disappointment and fear.

Here's to hoping her daughter never reads about this later in life.

[via NBC News]

Date: 10/1/2014

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Crime: Sexual Misconduct with a Minor, Beastiality

Ratchet Meter: 10

A Brooklyn teacher who was arrested for sending a student an inappropriate picture faces 36 new charges for allegedly engaging in sexual relationships with seven students over a three-year period.

According to the New York Times, Sean Shaynak, 44, taught math and science at Brooklyn Tech High School. The Times adds that the investigation began after a student told school officials that Shaynak sent her a picture of his penis on Snapchat in June.

He was subsequently arrested in August, and authorities learned about more of his alleged actions, which included “grooming” students for sex between 2011 and 2014:

Joseph Mancino, a Brooklyn prosecutor, told Justice Martin P. Murphy on Tuesday that Mr. Shaynak had “looked to groom these students” with the text messages, trips, alcohol and cigarettes. He gave one student perfect scores on classroom quizzes, though she routinely left questions blank, Mr. Mancino said.

Mr. Mancino said that Mr. Shaynak had a four-month sexual relationship with one of the six students, whom he once took to a sex club in a different state, where he had sex with other patrons. He also took her on what the prosecutor called a “terror ride” from Queens to Brooklyn, when the student became so frightened that she ran from the car and hid from Mr. Shaynak in some nearby bushes while he was “screaming and banging on the car.” Mr. Shaynak also threatened to tell the girl’s parents about their relationship, Mr. Mancino said.

Another student accompanied Mr. Shaynak to a nude beach in New Jersey, after Mr. Shaynak told her they were going to pick up school supplies, law enforcement officials said. They exchanged 10,000 text messages, in which he repeatedly mentioned the nude beach. She also visited his home, where he gave her so much hard liquor that she passed out, officials said. Mr. Shaynak encouraged that student to have sex with another female student, Mr. Mancino said.

To further complicate matters, authorities found an ample amount of bestiality porn on Shaynak's computer. He was fired from his job as a math and science teacher at Brooklyn Tech High School after his arrest in August, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

[via New York Times]