A Gilroy man is in custody in the Santa Clara County Jail following a decision by a Superior Court judge to revoke his bail at his arraignment Friday for multiple counts of child molestation.
The ruling by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Stuart Scott was in response to a third attempt by District Attorney Jeff Rosen to deny bail for Anthony Joseph Ramon, 25, since he was first arrested July 9 by Morgan Hill Police after a 10-year-old girl reported he molested her in a pool at a summer camp at the city’s Aquatics Center.
Ramon, a swim instructor at a YMCA summer camp, had posted bail shortly after the July arrest —and then twice more after additional victims came forward, leading to more charges, according to authorities.
Ramon was arraigned on Sept. 4 on five felony charges for child molestation at the South County Courthouse in Morgan Hill.
“Bail should always be about protecting public safety,” Rosen said in a press release before Friday’s arraignment. “The idea that a person suspected of sexually abusing multiple children should get the same chance at freedom as a person accused of mail fraud or some other non-violent crime is wrong, and dangerous.”
Ramon was a YMCA camp counselor supervising children during a June 30 summer camp field trip at the Morgan Hill Aquatics Center. After the field trip, MHPD received information that Ramon had sexually touched a 10-year-old victim in the pool, and officers arrested him on July 9, authorities said.
At the time, Ramon was released on $100,000 bail, according to the DA’s press release.
Police arrested Ramon again on July 16, after a different 10-year-old victim reported he had touched her, also in the pool during the same field trip, the DA said. Prosecutors asked the judge to hold Ramon without bail. However, the judge set Ramon’s bail at $200,000 and the suspect again bailed out.
A third victim—another 10-year-old girl—then came forward and reported Ramon had similarly touched her in the pool on the same field trip. MHPD arrested Ramon again on July 27. The DA’s office again asked for no bail; but the judge set the bail at $50,000, says the press release.
The DA’s office said that Ramon had raised the total $350,000 bail amount by paying $24,500 to bail bond companies.
