Ramsey Orta, the Staten Island man who filmed the arrest and death of Eric Garner, has been released from jail after his family crowd-funded his bail money. Orta was arrested in February on "drug-related charges," but his lawyer said they were worried bail would be denied because of his involvement in the Eric Garner case.
The Orta family's GoFundMe campaign raised enough to post his $100,000 bail, but his lawyer Ken Perry said prosecutors wanted to hold a hearing to determine where the money was from. The hearing, which was scheduled for yesterday, has been canceled and Orta was released later on Friday. Orta's family also said the police have been "harassing" them since Garner's death last July.
"We reviewed the paperwork that was submitted by the bail bondsman and we believed it met the requirements of the statute," Assistant District Attorney Daniel Master said. "So we didn't pursue our request to look further into the source of the funds."
Orta, who also has a pending gun-possession case in New York State Supreme Court and two pending misdemeanors in Pendleton Criminal Court, is accused of selling heroin, pills, crack cocaine and marijuana to an undercover officer along with his mother and his brother. His GoFundMe raised $48,000 from 1,887 donors; $16,250 was needed for bail, and the rest will be used for legal fees.
"Given the source of the bail funds—now again the package we gave them listed where all the money came from—plus they've known about it cause it's been all over social media and they can look online and see all the people," Perry said. "I don't want to say I was surprised because of the political undertones of this case. I was not all necessarily all that surprised, but I was surprised by the legal action of them saying, 'No, we are opposing this bail.'"
