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Ramsey Orta makes bail after Manhattan drug charges are reduced


Ramsey Orta talks on the phone outside state Supreme Court, St. George in January, after agreeing to provide a DNA sample for a case in which he's accused of possessing an illegal gun. (Staten Island Advance/Frank Donnelly)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Ramsey Orta, who filmed Eric Garner's fatal confrontation with police, has been released from jail -- after prosecutors said the drugs he sold to an undercover officer in Manhattan turned out to be fake.

Orta was freed from Rikers Island on Wednesday morning, after his friends and family put up roughly $1,300 to secure an $8,000 bail bond, his lawyer, William Aronin said.

Orta, who initially faced felony drug sale and possession charges, was arrested on June 30 and accused of selling MDMA, or "molly," to an undercover police officer in the Alphabet City neighborhood of Manhattan.

A lab test revealed that what he allegedly sold wasn't MDMA at all, according to authorities.

"From my training and experience, I know that the defendant's actions are of a kind commonly used to defraud people of money through a trick or swindle," wrote NYPD Officer Richard Mclees in a criminal complaint against Orta.

The Manhattan district attorney's office filed what's referred to as a "superseding information" laying out the new charges against him - an offense related to imitation controlled substances, as well as petit larceny, fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and fraudulent accosting, all misdemeanors.

Orta was originally being held on $15,000 bond or $7,500 cash, but a Manhattan judge dropped that amount to $8,000 bond or $4,000 cash Monday.

Orta still faces several pending Staten Island cases, including a gun possession case from Aug. 2, and a February indictment alleging he sold drugs to an undercover officer on nine separate occasions.

He's described the charges against him as a "frame-up," and his supporters maintain that police have targeted him for retaliation ever since Garner's death.

"He's getting more and more frustrated. All he wants to do is keep his nose clean," said Aronin, Orta's lawyer.

Aronin said Orta denies the charges in the Manhattan case, but even so maintains that what's now being alleged doesn't violate state law.

"It's just piling up on someone who wants to get his life together," Aronin said.

Prosecutors in the Staten Island drug case have said that Orta was caught on video conducting seven of the nine drug deals to an undercover.

Aronin said he's only seen "snippets" of those videos, and those snippets don't actually show any deals take place. "You can't understand a word that anybody is saying. There's weird time stamps," he said.

He's pushing to obtain the full footage so his office can do a forensic analysis of it, he said, adding that he'd abide by any judge's order to not release the videos to assuage concerns about revealing the identity of an undercover cop.

Orta is due back in court in Manhattan on Sept. 8. He's slated to return to court on Staten Island on July 29.

The superseding criminal complaint against Orta in the Manhattan case can be found below.