Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A routine traffic infraction in Dillon, S.C., led to the apprehension of Kelbyn Ramirez, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic who is wanted on a charge that he killed a man in South Providence, according to law enforcement authorities.
Ramirez, a convicted drug dealer who the Providence police have said entered the United States illegally, was a passenger in a southbound Lincoln Navigator sport-utility vehicle bearing temporary Rhode Island license plates that was stopped by a deputy sheriff for following a car too closely on an interstate highway.
The deputy sheriff, according to a report by the Dillon County Sheriff’s Office made public yesterday, found that the driver was not carrying an operator’s license or a vehicle registration.
The driver and the passenger allegedly were unclear about one another’s names and contradicted one another in answering questions about their relationship and the origin of their trip, and by inquiring further, deputies said they learned that both men lied about their identities.
Using a drug-sniffing dog, deputies said they discovered four pounds of marijuana wrapped in a towel in a duffel bag inside the SUV.
In an unrelated slaying in South Providence, David Mello yesterday was arraigned in Rhode Island District Court and ordered held without bail on three charges in connection with the shooting death of Marc Quintal on Aug. 15.
Ramirez’s identity was confirmed by an examination of his fingerprints, according to Providence police Maj. Stephen Campbell. The traffic stop occurred July 17, but Ramirez’s apprehension was not disclosed by the Providence police until Thursday. It was not immediately clear if the delay was due to the time it took to confirm Ramirez’s identity.
The driver, who offered a Florida identification card saying that he was Luis Venecio Payano Jr., turned out to be Luis A. Ortiz, 23, of 21 Bellevue Ave., in the West End of Providence, according to the sheriff’s office. The passenger said he was Omar J. Rivera of Chad Brown Street, Providence, but he actually is Ramirez, whose last known address is 479 Potters Ave., in the Elmwood section, according to Rhode Island and South Carolina authorities.
The sheriff’s office seized the SUV and charged Ortiz with drug possession.
Ramirez is named in an arrest warrant accusing him of murder in the May 14 shooting death of an acquaintance, Aneuris Caceres, 21, of 135 Colfax St., South Providence, in what the police described as a senseless street argument.
In the more recent slaying of Quintal, a state prosecutor yesterday told Rhode Island District Court Judge Frank J. Cenerini that Quintal’s death was the result of a drug transaction that was arranged by Mello and David Rocha — who was not otherwise identified — at Fall River District Court on Aug. 13.
With Quintal driving, Rocha and two other men traveled to South Providence on Aug. 15 and, as directed by Mello in a cell-phone conversation, parked in the driveway of a house at Pearl and Hayward streets. Mello and Sylvester Moses, both 20, whose last known addresses were in Providence, then approached the car with drawn handguns in an alleged robbery attempt.
Mello had a small black revolver and Moses, a large semiautomatic pistol, witnesses said, and, according to the authorities, Quintal was shot in the back. A projectile consistent with a 22-caliber weapon was recovered.
Mello faces three felony charges: murder, first-degree robbery and using a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence. He entered no plea to the felonies, as is customary in District Court, and was ordered held without bail on those counts.
In addition, he is alleged to be a violator of the conditions of bail set by Superior Court on two counts of felony assault last year and a violator of the conditions of probation for a misdemeanor adjudicated in District Court.
He is scheduled for a bail hearing as well as hearings on the alleged violations of probation and the prior bail on Sept. 7.
Moses, who is named in an arrest warrant charging him with murder, remains at large.
Michael Gomes, 21, whose last known address is 7 Whelan Rd., in the Hartford Park housing project, was arraigned yesterday on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with a stabbing in April. State and federal agents arrested Gomes when they arrested Mello in a North End tenement Thursday.
Cenerini set bail of $30,000 with surety for Gomes but ordered him held as an alleged violator of probation on a 2006 drug conviction, according to the police.
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