An Oxford man facing charges in connection with a fatal March crash disregarded pleas from a friend to slow down and was driving his car 61 mph when it hit an embankment and was then launched airborne nearly 60 feet into a building, state police said in an affidavit in the case released Monday.
The man, Eric Ramirez, 20, appeared at Superior Court in Derby for the first time Monday. He said nothing during a brief appearance before Judge Karen Sequino, who continued the case to Oct. 25.
Afterward, his lawyer said Ramirez feels “devastated” about the March 9 accident, which killed one of his two passengers, Brandon Giordano, a popular 15-year-old student at Oxford High School.
Ramirez faces a single count of misconduct with a motor vehicle, a felony, in the case, in addition to charges of reckless driving, engaging police in pursuit, and two equipment violations.
He is represented by New Haven attorney Tara L. Knight and is currently free on $10,000 bond.
“He’s devastated by this tragedy,” said Knight after Ramirez’s court appearance.
Giordano “was a very good friend of his,” Knight added.
Knight said she became Ramirez’s lawyer on Monday and had not yet reviewed numerous documents in the case file, and therefore had no other comment.
An affidavit seeking Ramirez’s arrest in the case, which is embedded at the end of this story, details the investigation that led to to the charges against him.
He was arrested Sept. 11, about six months after the crash.
The affidavit says that at 11:48 p.m. on the night of the accident, Ramirez was returning to Oxford from New Haven in his silver 2000 Ford Mustang convertible with Giordano in the rear seat and another friend, 16-year-old Dion Major, in the front passenger’s seat, when a Seymour Police Officer Anthony Renaldi observed that the car had colored LED lights attached to its undercarriage.
When Renaldi attempted to pull over the Mustang for an equipment violation, Ramirez sped off up Route 67 toward Oxford at high speed, the affidavit says.
The affidavit says state police who later analyzed surveillance footage from a Route 67 gas station determined Ramirez’s car was going 91 mph as it passed between two utility poles in front of the station.
Ramirez also passed vehicles and turned off his lights during the pursuit, according to the affidavit.
After following the car for about two minutes, Renaldi broke off the high-speed pursuit, judging it too dangerous, but soon he met a state trooper who had also observed the speeding Mustang, the affidavit says.
Minutes later, Renaldi and the trooper located the vehicle laying upside down with the three occupants pinned beneath it.
Ramirez and Major were extricated and transported to Waterbury Hospital for serious, non-life-threatening injuries, and Giordano was pronounced dead at the scene.
Evidence at the scene indicated that the Mustang had struck a grassy embankment along the side of Old State Road 67, which caused it to leave the ground and fly nearly 60 feet through the air until it struck the side of the Precision Glass and Mirror building.
State police analyzed evidence at the accident scene to determine Ramirez’s car was going 61 mph when it hit the embankment, according to the affidavit.
Major, who was interviewed by police later that night with his mother’s permission, said he asked Ramirez to slow down and stop for police, but Ramirez did not comply.
“Eric accelerated fast and I told him to slow down and stop,” the affidavit quotes Major as saying. “Eric didn’t respond, passed cars driving in the same direction on the wrong side of the road and had to swerve back into the lane to avoid hitting cars head-on. I would estimate Eric was driving between 70 – 80 MPH. Eric tumed onto another street hit a ditch, lost control and rolled over the car.”
Police said there was no evidence that Ramirez, Major or Giordano had been drinking prior to the accident.
