Jury finds fatal stabbing not gang-related

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Updated: March 3, 2012 11:35AM

Lake Superior Court jurors found the prosecution failed to prove that a Merrillville man convicted of murder carried out the crime as part of his affiliation with a criminal gang.

Ernesto Roberto Ramirez, 31, was convicted Tuesday of murder and criminal gang activity in the Jan. 13, 2011, stabbing death of Victor Adams, 34, of West Lafayette during a bar fight at the Copper Penny in Hammond. Judge Thomas Stefaniak Jr. scheduled a March 28 sentencing hearing on the charges. Murder is punishable by 45 to 65 years, and criminal gang activity is punishable by a maximum three-year sentence.

On Wednesday, the trial moved into a separate phase that required the state to prove Ramirez’s criminal gang membership and that he committed the murder “at the direction of or in affiliation with a criminal gang,” according to the sentencing enhancement request filed in April. That enhancement provides for a sentence of 90 to 130 years — double the penalty range for murder. Deputy prosecutor Michelle Jatkiewicz played phone calls Ramirez made from the Lake County Jail in which he talked about his status in the gang and what could happen to a rival gang member who was charged with killing someone in Ramirez’s gang.

Hammond police Sgt. Michael Schmidt, a member of the gang suppression unit, identified photographs showing tattoos on Ramirez’s body as those of a specific gang.

During closing arguments, defense attorney John Cantrell argued the fight at the bar was over a pool game, while Jatkiewicz said Ramirez felt Adams and his friends were disrespecting him.

Cantrell blasted Hammond police for allowing bar owner Steve Hekkel to retain possession of the surveillance footage. Cantrell said all but one camera angle was obliterated, making it impossible to know for certain what happened in the time before the fight, which lasted a few seconds and showed Ramirez stabbing Adams in the neck during the brawl.

Hekkel, 50, was charged with obstruction of justice in November. He has pleaded not guilty.

The criminal gang sentencing enhancement has been sought twice in recent years. The first time was in the murder case of Prevaun McDaniel, 17, of Chicago, who was acquitted of murder in the 2008 shooting death of John Shoulders, 15, of Hammond.