Cops arrested after allegedly extorting $20,000 to avoid arrest

Two po­lice of­fi­cers are fac­ing crim­i­nal charges af­ter al­leged­ly ar­rest­ing a mo­torist and de­mand­ing cash in ex­change for his re­lease dur­ing an in­ci­dent along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way.

Po­lice Con­sta­bles Ste­fano Ha­ban and Jalani Pri­ma were both charged on Mon­day with mul­ti­ple of­fences of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice fol­low­ing a Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the mo­torist was stopped on March 14 near Mau­si­ca, told he was dri­ving a stolen ve­hi­cle and ar­rest­ed de­spite deny­ing the claim. While be­ing trans­port­ed, the of­fi­cers al­leged­ly di­vert­ed from the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion to Mau­si­ca Road, where they de­tained the man and de­mand­ed $20,000 for his re­lease.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the vic­tim was tak­en to an ATM in Ari­ma and in­struct­ed to with­draw $10,000, and was threat­ened over the re­main­ing bal­ance. The of­fi­cers are al­so ac­cused of tak­ing cash from his wal­let.

Both of­fi­cers face charges of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, name­ly kid­nap­ping and cor­rupt­ly ob­tain­ing $10,000.

Ha­ban faces ad­di­tion­al charges, in­clud­ing at­tempt­ing to ob­tain $20,000, lar­ce­ny of $1,200, mul­ti­ple counts of at­tempt­ing to ob­tain fur­ther sums, and ob­tain­ing $500.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions) Natasha George and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Richard Smith, with sup­port from se­nior of­fi­cers of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau. A con­trolled op­er­a­tion led to the ar­rest of one of the ac­cused.

Both of­fi­cers re­main de­tained at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders.

The mat­ter was heard at the Ari­ma Mag­is­trates’ Court to­day and ad­journed to April 14.