Trinidad: Labourer accused of robbery via Facebook granted bail

Kadeem Charles

(TRINIDAD EXPRESS) A La Ro­maine man, ac­cused of rob­bing three peo­ple af­ter they were lured to an area through an on­line car ad­ver­tise­ment, has been grant­ed $300,000 ap­proval bail.

Kadeem Charles, 19, a labour­er, was al­so grant­ed $30,000 cash bail and warned not to have any con­tact with the vic­tims through Face­book or any means.

Charles and two oth­er sus­pects were ar­rest­ed dur­ing the Op­er­a­tion Strike Back ex­er­cise last Fri­day.

How­ev­er, on­ly Charles ap­peared in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day in con­nec­tion with these of­fences.

The vic­tims were al­leged­ly robbed at Church Street, La Ro­maine af­ter they re­spond­ed to ad­ver­tise­ments through Face­book for the sale of cars.

The charges al­leged that Charles along with an­oth­er per­son robbed the vic­tims at gun­point and used per­son­al vi­o­lence. Ac­cord­ing to the first charge, on Sep­tem­ber 25 Charles al­leged­ly robbed a man of two cell­phones, val­ued $2,600 and $1,100 re­spec­tive­ly, as well as $12,000 cash.

He is al­so ac­cused of rob­bing an­oth­er man of his $175 wal­let, a dri­vers per­mit val­ued $500, an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card val­ued $50, an FCB bank card val­ued $50 and $700 on Sep­tem­ber 30.

The oth­er charge he faces al­leged that on that same day he robbed an­oth­er per­son of $1,000.

His lawyer Frank Git­tens asked First Court Se­nior Mag­is­trate Cher­ril-Anne An­toine to al­low Charles’ moth­er to sign as his bailor be­cause he had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions or pend­ing mat­ters.

Git­tens al­so said Charles lived with his par­ents. How­ev­er, the mag­is­trate re­ject­ed Git­tens’ re­quest be­cause the al­le­ga­tions in­volved three charges, three vic­tims and dif­fer­ent dates.

Court pros­e­cu­tor Cley­on Seedan did not ob­ject to bail but asked that con­di­tions, in­clud­ing that Charles has no con­tact with the vic­tims through Face­book be­cause of the cir­cum­stances of the case.

The mag­is­trate or­dered Charles to have no con­tact with the vic­tims by any means, to sur­ren­der his pass­port and re­port on Sat­ur­days at the San Fer­nan­do CID. The mat­ter was ad­journed to No­vem­ber 1.