Last Updated on: 6th July 2021, 02:32 pm
I’m not excusing anything that Juan Esteban Ramirez may have done and I don’t want to go full victim blamer (it’s your right to have naked photos of yourself in your own possession without fear of some creep pilfering them for personal gratification), but why are we handing over our phones to some fella at the bank? Does that not raise even the tiniest red flag?
Ok, so you don’t know how to look up your own account info. Fine. Maybe I don’t either. But the minute homeboy asks me to unlock my phone and hand it to him so he can help me find it, I’m getting a little suspicious.
Dude, you’re the bank. You have my account information in your own files. If you need to make sure I’m me before you help me find it, ask me some verification questions. Ask for my ID. But seriously, what kind of shitty, ghetto ass bank doesn’t have its own computers? You don’t need mine. And if for some crazy reason all of your computers are down, just tell me which buttons to push in the app and I’ll push them. You’re not touching my phone.
The first alleged victim told police she walked into the Bank of America at 7770 Highway 6 North in Houston on September 14, 2020, to get a new debit card.
“She was unsure how to look up her Bank of America account information. The defendant asked her to use her phone to look up her bank account number. The victim unlocked her cellphone and handed the cellphone to the defendant,” according to court documents.
That’s when Ramirez allegedly went into the victim’s photos app and sent himself “approximately 16 images of the victim nude or wearing underwear only” and then deleted the texts.
“It appears as if he was trying to cover his tracks,” said Forcht.
But after she left the bank, the victim noticed the sent messages on her smartwatch and filed a police report.
The second victim and her parents walked into the same Bank of America the same week with questions about her account and Ramirez allegedly stole intimate photos from her phone in the same way, and then went a step further.“In this case, he actually texts that victim from his personal cell phone and threatens her and says he has those pictures from her cell phone,” Forcht said. “She felt threatened by the way he was speaking to her and felt as though he expected something from her in exchange for the privacy of those texts.”