Two Trinidad cops charged after corruption, gang probes

Police officers PCs Don Balgobin, left, and Angelo Cedeno make their way into the Arima Magistrates’ Court yesterday.
Police officers PCs Don Balgobin, left, and Angelo Cedeno make their way into the Arima Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Two po­lice of­fi­cers from east Trinidad have been grant­ed a to­tal of $285,000 bail af­ter ap­pear­ing in court on cor­rup­tion and gang charges.

PCs Don Bal­go­b­in and An­ge­lo Ce­de­no were grant­ed bail af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore Mag­is­trate Joanne Con­nor in the Ari­ma Mag­is­trate’s Court yes­ter­day.

Ce­de­no, 40, from Jit­man Dri­ve, Five Rivers, Arou­ca, was charged for mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice by traf­fick­ing co­caine and sup­ply­ing am­mu­ni­tion to his neigh­bour Ken “Re­nal­do” Gomez. He was al­so charged un­der Sec­tion 9 of the An­ti-Gang Act for coun­selling and pro­vid­ing sup­port to the gang op­er­at­ing in his

com­mu­ni­ty, which car­ries a sen­tence of 25 years im­pris­on­ment up­on con­vic­tion.

Ce­de­no is al­leged to have com­mit­ted the of­fences be­tween 2017 and ear­li­er this year.

Bal­go­b­in, 39, of KP Lands, Va­len­cia, was not charged un­der the gang leg­is­la­tion but rather for ac­cept­ing an undis­closed bribe from Gomez for for­go­ing a mar­i­jua­na traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­tween March and May, last year.

Dressed in T-shirts and jeans, the of­fi­cers, who each has over 15 years’ ser­vice, stood silent­ly dur­ing their in­di­vid­ual court ap­pear­ances and spoke on­ly through their at­tor­neys. Be­fore the hear­ing, they were al­so seen briefly greet­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with some of their col­leagues, who were in the court for un­re­lat­ed cas­es.

They were not called up­on to plead to the charges, which were laid in­dictably.

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tors did not ob­ject to bail for the duo but not­ed that Ce­de­no had pend­ing charges for com­mon as­sault against a woman and her son and for ob­struc­tion of jus­tice.

Bal­go­b­in was even­tu­al­ly grant­ed $85,000 bail with a cash al­ter­na­tive of $15,000, while Ce­de­no was grant­ed $200,000 bail with a cash al­ter­na­tive of $30,000.

Con­nor or­dered them to sur­ren­der their pass­ports and to reap­pear be­fore her on April 2.

Mo­ments af­ter the of­fi­cers’ court ap­pear­ance, a third man, Jean-Michel Sta­ple, ap­peared be­fore Con­nor charged with coun­selling the gang just like Ce­de­no. Sta­ple was charged along­side Gomez and six oth­ers, who had pre­vi­ous­ly ap­peared in court, for be­ing mem­bers of a gang.

Gomez has al­so been charged with be­ing the leader of the gang, for co­erc­ing peo­ple to join it and for re­tal­i­at­ing against peo­ple who re­fused to join.

Sta­ple plead­ed not guilty to the charge.

Con­nor did not con­sid­er bail for Sta­ple as po­lice pros­e­cu­tors did not re­ceive his crim­i­nal record trac­ing in time for the hear­ing. She ad­journed his case to this morn­ing, when she is ex­pect­ed to de­cide on bail.

Dur­ing the brief hear­ing, Sta­ple’s lawyer Criston J Williams re­quest­ed that po­lice dis­close all ev­i­dence against his client, in­clud­ing in­ter­cept­ed tele­phone com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Ce­de­no, Bal­go­b­in and Sta­ple were among a group of po­lice of­fi­cers and civil­ians who were de­tained as part of a re­cent in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Or­gan­ised Crime and In­tel­li­gence Unit (OCIU). In­ves­ti­ga­tors were forced to ob­tain de­ten­tion or­ders un­der the gang leg­is­la­tion in or­der to de­lay their re­lease while in­ves­ti­ga­tions were on­go­ing. The or­ders, which al­lowed the men to be held with­out be­ing charged un­til yes­ter­day, were up­held by High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds last week.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that some of the sus­pects, in­clud­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer re­lat­ed to for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, were re­leased af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­ceived ad­vice from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

When the gang leg­is­la­tion was first pro­claimed in 2011, per­sons who were charged could not ap­ply for bail for 120 days. The pro­vi­sion was not im­ple­ment­ed when the leg­is­la­tion was rein­tro­duced in May last year.

Ce­de­no was rep­re­sent­ed by Shel­don Guer­ra, while Ter­ry Boy­er rep­re­sent­ed Bal­go­b­in.