6 indicted for rape in

LAKEWOOD — Carlos A. Ferreira, a township attorney, formally requested to be the attorney of record for Dimas Teidoro Mendez, one of the six men indicted on Sept. 24 in state Superior Court, Toms River, on charges of rape, according to court papers sent to the Tri-Town News by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.

Ferreira’s office sent Substitution of Attorney papers on Oct. 6 to Catherine Ciak, an attorney appointed by the Ocean County Public Defender’s Office to represent Mendez.

Last month, Ferreira told a reporter from the Tri-Town News that the family of Mendez, 18, an illegal alien from Mexico, had retained his services to defend the young man. Mendez is so far the only defendant who has benefit of his own counsel.

All of the individuals indicted are illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Relatives and housemates said the other men, who spoke little or no English, did not have counsel who spoke Spanish. They said a social services worker had to translate for them.

Indicted on a charge of rape in the wake of the July 13 incident are Mendez; Juan Cortez Aguilar, 26, of Freehold; Sixto Ramirez Carista, 20, of Lakewood; Carlos Morales Morales, 22, of Lakewood; Ezequiel Soriano Ramirez, 19, of Freehold; Sergio Lozano, 17, of Lakewood. Ernesto Palacios Morales, 32, of Freehold, was indicted on a charge of sexual molestation.

According to authorities, all of the individuals will face deportation hearings no matter what decision is reached in the criminal trials they face.

Authorities claim that on the night of July 13, a 33-year-old white woman from Lakewood had been invited into the Dewey Street home and then changed her mind about staying, but was not allowed to leave the home. The men then allegedly took the woman to the basement of the home, where all of them accosted her sexually.

Robert Gasser, assistant prosecutor and public information officer in the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, Toms River, said the victim is not Hispanic and did not speak Spanish.

Leonel Lozano, 24, the older brother of Sergio Lozano, the 17-year-old juvenile charged in the matter, Cirilo Morales, 23, and Hugo Ortega, 22, both of whom live at 314 Dewey Street, where the incident took place, said the woman never needed to know Spanish since she was a prosti­tute who was there to sell her sexual ser­vices to the men, not to share her com­pany.

In a previous interview with the Tri-Town News, the three men said that a pimp who returned with a prostitute he had brought to service the men allegedly robbed the alleged victim of her earnings. They said they saw the disappointed man pull at the alleged victim’s clothing as she walked away from the house.

When the woman could not find the money she had been paid, she returned to the house and accused the men of rob­bery. After a fruitless search of the base­ment, they said, she called police on her cell phone and told them she had been raped.

The men in the house were presented before her one at a time for identification after she was picked up in an ambulance with a police escort.

"She told the police she was raped," said Morales. "The men said they paid her, but because the police didn’t find any money on her, they believed her."

There were 10 men in the house. Out of the 10, said Morales, the police took seven of them, including his two brothers. Despite their status and those of the arrested men as illegal workers, Morales, Lozano and Ortega questioned who other than illegals would do the menial jobs the Mexicans performed if they were all de­ported home tomorrow.

"We prioritize national security and public security. We decide who is the worst of the worst," said Bill Riley, acting associate special agent in charge of the Investigations Division at the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the fed­eral Department of Homeland Security.

"These people were charged with rape," Riley said. "We wouldn’t want someone walking the street that has been convicted of rape. Just because they’re not convicted of a crime doesn’t mean they’re not removable for violating immi­gration laws."