Former local police officer, son indicted for robbery and assault

A Whitley County Grand Jury has indicted a former Whitley County Sheriff’s deputy and ex-Corbin police officer and his son on new charges related to an alleged 2007 assault of a Corbin man.

Friday morning, the grand jury indicted both Tony A. Ramey, 49, and his son, Perry Anthony Ramey, 31, both of Corbin, for first-degree robbery and second-degree assault.

The grand jury also indicted Perry Ramey for theft by deception over $300.

The indictments stem from a June 13, 2007, incident over a pistol that Perry Ramey allegedly sold but he didn’t own and wasn’t authorized to sell to Dalton Christopher Brewer, according to an indictment.
The gun allegedly belonged to Tony Ramey.

Perry Ramey and Tony Ramey are both accused of "acting alone or in complicity with another" to threaten the use of physical force while armed with a pistol and in the course of committing a theft of Brewer and of striking him with a pistol causing physical injury, according to their indictments.

The original 2007 indictment against both men charged them with first-degree assault, and Perry Ramey with theft by deception over $300.

Tony Ramey’s attorney, Greta Price, said the superceding indictment didn’t come as a surprise to anyone, and that Special Prosecutor Jeffrey R. Prather indicated he planned to seek one during an April court hearing.

"In this situation and typically in these situations, the commonwealth, or in this case the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, has gone back and looked through the files and determined that they felt the charges weren’t exactly precise according to the circumstances," Price said.

"He presented again to the grand jury and came up with new charges from the grand jury. The old indictment is now dismissed because this supercedes it."

The case with the new charges is still scheduled to be tried July 15 before Special Judge Ron Johnson in Whitley Circuit Court.

During the April hearing, Prather indicated that he felt robbery was the more appropriate charge based upon the evidence rather than first-degree assault.

The case was presented again to the grand jury Monday morning. The only witnesses called were Corbin Police Capt. Tim Helton, who investigated the case, and Tony Ramey, who asked to testify before the grand jury.

Brewer has filed a separate civil lawsuit in federal court against Tony Ramey and the Whitley County Sheriff’s Department alleging that Tony Ramey was a card carrying sheriff’s deputy at the time of the assault and that Tony Ramey was trying to arrest him when the beating took place.

Neither Tony Ramey, Another Ramey nor Brewer appeared in court Friday morning.