The Brooklyn man accused of silencing a rape victim by slashing her throat before she could testify against him has continued to harass her family from Bellevue Hospital, prosecutors said yesterday.
Hemant Megnath, 29, has been held there for psychiatric observation since his arrest on murder charges March 20, but prosecutors say he’s had free access to a phone.
“The victim’s husband’s family has been receiving frightening phone calls since the defendant’s arrest,” said Assistant DA Sara Litman, adding that the husband’s car had been vandalized.
Megnath had been scheduled to go on trial today on charges he raped Natasha Ramen in May 2005 at his Brooklyn home.
Instead, he’s now been slapped with murder charges in Queens for allegedly butchering the 20-year-old woman last month outside her Hollis home.
The case has been a colossal embarrassment to Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes, whose office failed to inform a judge in October of allegations Megnath had threatened Ramen’s in-laws while free on $5,000 bail.
And yesterday, it appeared the Brooklyn DA’s had again goofed.
After Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Joel Goldberg asked prosecutors if a Queens judge was aware of the latest set of alleged phone calls, Litman said she believed the judge had been informed.
In fact, there was no mention of the matter at Megnath’s court appearance in Queens last week.
Litman said she would try to introduce Ramen’s March 2006 grand-jury testimony at Megnath’s murder trial.