OneFour rapper Dahcell ‘Celly’ Ramos remains behind bars despite avoiding jail time over house party brawl
OneFour rapper Dahcell ‘Celly’ Ramos has avoided jail time over a brawl at a western Sydney house party, but remains behind bars. See why he could trade his prison cell for a stage sooner rather than later.
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Troubled OneFour rapper Dahcell ‘Celly’ Ramos will remain behind bars until at least April despite a court sparing him a prison sentence over an armed brawl at a western Sydney house party.
Ramos, a founding member of the controversial drill rap group now the subject of The Daily Telegraph’s The War: Young Blood series, was handed an 18-month intensive correction order on Wednesday after pleading guilty to brandishing a weapon during the March 2024 melee.
The community-based order would normally have made him eligible for immediate release from custody, however the 26-year-old is currently behind bars serving the balance of parole for two previous violent offences.
The Telegraph can exclusively reveal Ramos is scheduled to face the NSW State Parole Authority in April in a bid to have that parole reinstated.
Such a move would pave the way for Ramos to rejoin OneFour alongside band members Jerome ‘J Emz’ Misa, Spencer ‘Spenny’ Magalogo and Sales ‘Lekks’ Su’a.
Ramos has spent the past nine months in custody after he was arrested in April 2024 and charged with affray, using an offensive weapon with intent to commit an indictable offence and wielding a knife in public, amid allegations he became involved in an armed dispute between two groups of people at a house party in Cranebrook, near Penrith.
Police had originally alleged video footage taken on the day showed Ramos pulling a large kitchen knife from the waistband of his pants and lunging at one of the men, who narrowly avoided the blade.
Ramos claimed in an unsuccessful Supreme Court bail application last year that he had been holding part of a venetian blind at the time and not a knife.
He subsequently pleaded guilty to the offensive weapon charge in a plea deal with prosecutors, which saw the knife charge formally withdrawn and the affray charge taken into account as part of his sentence.
Judge Craig Everson on Wednesday agreed to spare Ramos a full time jail sentence.
During his judgment, which lasted just 15 minutes, Judge Everon noted Ramos’ actions that day constituted a single swing of a “sharp metal object”.
“On March 2, there was an incident involving a group of people …. it seemed to me that most if not all were young men,” Judge Everson said.
“It looks as if there was a verbal response to the incident.
“And what Mr Ramos did was to produce an offensive weapon in the nature of a sharp metal object, raise it from his waist and swing it downwards in a slashing motion.
“That is in effect the entirety of the offence.”
Judge Everson said Ramos had a dysfunctional upbringing including exposure to domestic violence while growing up in Penrith, and had left school after completing Year 10.
The court heard he went on to become a “talented musician” but his adult life had been punctuated by run-ins with the law.
He was sentenced to eight years jail, with a non-parole period of almost five years, over his involvement in a pub brawl in July 2018 and an armed robbery in September the same year.
The court heard Ramos was on parole for both offences at the time of the 2024 brawl, with the fresh charges resulting in his parole being revoked.
Despite that, Judge Everson found Ramos’ prospects of rehabilitation were “at least reasonable” given he had shown a “demonstrated measure of remorse” for his crime.
He noted the maximum sentence for the charge was 12 years jail, but found Ramos’ case was “very far removed from such a situation”.
“In this case, the unplanned offence was very brief, consisting, as I said, of a single swing of an offensive weapon,” he said.
“The court is of the view that an intensive correction order has the capacity to operate as a substantial punishment given the mandatory obligations attached to the standard conditions.”
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Originally published as OneFour rapper Dahcell ‘Celly’ Ramos remains behind bars despite avoiding jail time over house party brawl
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