A bus driver and a bus conductor were yesterday granted $25,000 bail each when they appeared at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court accused of trying to bribe a police sergeant to avoid being charged with overloading their bus.
The conductor, 22-year-old Keon Sealey of 29 Queen Street, Kitty and the driver, 27-year-old Devon Searles of 28 Joseph Pollydore Street, Lodge, both pleaded not guilty to the charge of corrupt transaction with an agent of the law when Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson read it to them.
Sealey and Searles denied that they gave Sergeant of Police Neville Smith $2,500 as an inducement to forbear charging them with the offence of breach of insurance on May 15.
Searles told the court that on the day in question he was proceeding along the road in his bus with an overload of only two passengers. He said that the police stopped the bus and took him and Sealey to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Eve Leary.
He said that Sergeant Smith then took them to a room with a table where he asked, “how much we can afford to pay so that he could drop the charge.” He said that they had agreed on $3,000.
Searles said he placed $2,500 on the table and as he was searching his pockets for the other $500, Sergeant Smith picked up the money and told them that he was going to charge them for trying to bribe him.
“We din even give he de money yet. We jus put it on de table,” stated Searles.
Police Prosecutor Munilall Seetaram made no objection to the bail applications for Sealey or Searles when they suggested it, but stated that on the day in question Sergeant Smith had arrested the two defendants for offering him $2,500 to prevent them from being charged for overloading their bus with passengers.
He said that the two were taken to CID Headquarters where they were later charged.
The magistrate subsequently placed the two on $25,000 bail each and ordered that their case be transferred to Court Six for June 15.
