If Yuby Ramirez was a contestant on Deal Or No Deal, she'd be one who said no to the banker's $250,000 offer and walked away with five bucks and some angry relatives.
In 2001, however, Ramirez had a little more at stake, though, than just some game show moola.
The single mother of two was on trial for assisting in the 1993 contract killing of cocaine dealer Bernardo Gonzalez, a government witness who was set to testify against drug kingpins Sal Magluta and Willie Falcon.
Prosecuters offered her a 5-year plea deal, but Ramirez's lawyers advised her not to take it, believing that the charge of ''tampering'' with the witness, Gonzalez, by killing him, did not amount to premeditated murder. They maintained the statute of limitations had expired.
Ramirez went with her lawyers' advice, and ended up with a life sentence.
Oops.
The blunder was in the fact that her lawyers didn't bring that argument up until after the trial started - had they bought it up before the trial, said Judge Joan Lenard, prosecutors wouldn't have been allowed to re-charge Ramirez for Gonzalez's killing.
To add insult to injury, the hitmen she was accused of harboring -- Phanor Caicedo Ramos and Juan Carlos Caicedo Ramos - are already out (they must have had better lawyers).
Now, Ramirez is appealing the conviction, citing that her lawyers gave her shoddy advice, and her lawyers, in turn, agreed, submitting the petition themselves for her appeal, in which they admitted to rendering ''ineffective assistance of counsel.''
Well, no duh.
''Had I known that I was facing life in prison if I lost at trial, I would have jumped at the plea offer made to me before trial,'' Ramirez told The Miami Herald.
Tuesday, the court will determine whether or not Ramirez was harmed by her trial lawyers' advice.
Federal prosecutors think Ramirez was completely aware of her options and the potential risk in not taking the plea, but Ramirez disagrees.
''When I was 21," said Ramirez. "I was ignorant, naive and I thought I knew everything."
Ramirez's case is just a piece of the bigger Magluta-Falcon drug drama, which became headlines after the judge basically brushed off the jury's non-guilty verdict for Magluta's murder charges and decided that he was indeed guilty, sentencing him to life in prison.
Meanwhile, Falcon got off with 20 years and a wish for "all the best" from the judge.
Just say no to drugs, kids.
