CUNY Chemistry Professor Facing Decades in Prison
By Ilvea Lezama
Former adjunct Chemistry Professor Jorge Alberto Ramos is in federal custody facing charges he illegally smuggled three women into the U.S. from his native El Salvador and sexually abused them over a period of several years beginning in 2013.
A few weeks before the Fall semester started, York students and faculty members received an email from President Berenecea Johnson Eanes on Aug. 6 announcing the arrest of Ramos. Three days earlier, officials with the U.S. Attorney’s office announced the arrest of, “an adjunct professor of chemistry at a public university in New York.”
That same day the New York Post identified Ramos as a former adjunct at City College. Ramos is charged with paying for the illegal entry into the country for the three women, then threatening them with deportation if they would not yield to his repeated sexual attacks at his apartment in the Bronx, according to the indictment.
Almost immediately all traces of Ramos were deleted from CUNY websites, but according to state payroll records available on seethroughny.net he has a long history with CUNY, teaching at City College, Queens College and most recently at York, where he earned $10,306 as an adjunct in 2022.
His ratemyprofessor is still active and his latest rate (erroneously) reads, “He was recently convicted of sex crimes and having kidnapped women from El Salvador and keeping them in captivity from 2013-today.” Pandora’s Box reached out to the Chemistry Department chairs at both City and Queens College’s for comment but did not receive a response from either.
Ramos, 43, was born in San Miguel, El Salvador and moved to the Bronx. Ramos met all his victims through friends and relatives and would bribe the women by expressing his concern for them, sending their families gifts and money, according to the indictment. The three victims ranged between the ages of 18 to 27. He allegedly paid smugglers (Coyotes) approximately $15,000 for the three victims to be brought into the country illegally.
Ramos is charged with two counts of inducement to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity, two counts of transportation to engage in unlawful sexual activity, count of conspiracy to engage in human smuggling and one count of human smuggling and one count of harboring an alien. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a press release that Ramos preyed on vulnerable women with promises of a better life and “smuggled them to New York so that he could exploit their bodies for his sexual gratification.”
Pandora’s Box also reached out to York College’s Chemistry Department chair for comment, but no response was received. After Pandora’s Box reached out to President Eanes for comment, a representative in her office responded, “Our campus family is precious to us, and we took immediate action to protect our community. We are grateful for the work of the U.S. Attorney’s office in uncovering these heinous allegations.”
