EX-OFFICER GIVEN 10 YEARS IN PRISON

She Moved Drugs, Took A Hostage

KEY WEST -- A former Miami-Dade police-officer-turned-drug-dealer who
wreaked havoc in downtown Key West two years ago after officers found
cocaine in her cruise ship cabin was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday.

When Charlotte Green Ramos tried to run from authorities on Sept. 27, 1997,
she held a kite shop owner at knife-point. Police surrounded the state
attorney's office mistakenly, thinking it was the scene of the hostage
situation, and a police officer responding to the emergency call rammed his
patrol car into tourist-packed Sloppy Joe's.

Ramos pleaded guilty to kidnapping to facilitate a felony, aggravated
battery, escape and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer.

"She created a great risk of harm to many people . . . during a busy time
of the day," said Assistant State Attorney Manny Madruga. Prosecutors asked
Monroe County Circuit Judge Richard Payne to punish Ramos with a tougher
sentence, but he stayed within state guidelines. She was also sentenced to
concurrent five-year prison sentences for cocaine trafficking and unrelated
theft charges.

While suspended from the Miami-Dade police force because of grand theft
charges, Ramos went on a cruise ship to Jamaica with two other women and
brought back 9 pounds of cocaine, Madruga said. During a port call by the
ship in Key West, Customs agents checking out a tip found the drugs in bags
in Ramos' closet. She agreed to cooperate with authorities and lead them to
the person to whom she was to deliver the drugs.

But while police escorted her around downtown Key West she escaped, grabbed
a T-shirt and knife from a Duval Street shop and warned officers against
coming near her. She asked them to kill her. She stumbled into a shop owner
and put the knife to his throat. Finally, officers convinced her to drop
the knife and arrested her.

On Tuesday, Ramos apologized to the merchant and officers and said she had
made the drug run because she found herself in a desperate financial
situation when she was suspended from her job.