Rochester Man Loses Appeal of Rape Conviction & 23 Year Sentence

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St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - The Minnesota Court of Appeals has shot down an appeal filed by a Rochester man who is now serving a more than 23-year prison sentence.

In a ruling made public today, the Appeals Court upheld 58-year-old Scott Ramey's 2021 convictions on first and third-degree criminal sexual conduct charges. He was accused of using force and threats to hold a 20-year-old homeless woman captive in a storage unit and rape her multiple times over a period of three weeks in November 2020. Court records say that, in one of those instances, the victim told Ramey she wanted to leave and he responded by threatening her with a gun and sexually assaulting her.

The criminal complaint indicated the victim managed to escape when she was able to get inside a restaurant and pass a note to an employee instructing the person to call 911. Rochester police responded to the restaurant and took the young woman to a shelter.

In his appeal, Ramey unsuccessfully argued there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's decision to find him guilty, and the judge in the case made errors in the instructions given to the jury before it began deliberations.