For the first time in T&T’s his­to­ry, a pris­on­er has been charged for the il­le­gal use of a cell­phone with­in the prison walls, in this case mak­ing a video that went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia.

Con­vict­ed in­mate Steve McGilvery, who is housed at the Port of Spain Prison, has been charged with mak­ing a video record­ing in­side the Port-of-Spain Prison with­out the writ­ten au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons; trans­mit­ting a video record­ing from in­side the Port-of-Spain Prison by elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion for si­mul­ta­ne­ous re­cep­tion out­side the prison with­out the writ­ten au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons; hav­ing in his pos­ses­sion a pro­hib­it­ed ar­ti­cle to wit an elec­tron­ic Dig­i­cel sim card and de­vice with­out the writ­ten au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons and hav­ing in his pos­ses­sion a pro­hib­it­ed ar­ti­cle to wit a Sam­sung cell­phone with­out the writ­ten au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons.

McGilvery is card­ed to ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly be­fore the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate's Court to­mor­row to face the charges.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that cer­tain breach­es un­der the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Law En­force­ment Of­fi­cers) Act were re­port­ed on June 10, 2021 to the Port-of-Spain CID.

This led to an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in which Mc Gilvery was in­ter­viewed on June 30, as well as a ver­i­fi­ca­tion process at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca.

The two in­ves­ti­ga­tors lat­er sought ad­vice from CID se­niors along­side the TTPS le­gal team and Mc Guil­lvery was for­mal­ly charged with the of­fences on Ju­ly 13.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions were con­duct­ed by of­fi­cers of the Cy­ber­crime Unit, Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit and the Port-of-Spain Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment (CID).

McGilvery, who is serv­ing a 30-year sen­tence for mur­der, and fel­low in­mate Leroy Mo­hammed es­caped from the Car­rera Is­land Prison on Au­gust 31, 2015. He was on the run for al­most two years be­fore re­cap­tured while hid­ing in an aban­doned ware­house in Sea Lots area on Ju­ly 21, 2017 dur­ing a joint ex­er­cise by of­fi­cers from Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion Port-of-Spain City Po­lice.

Con­tact­ed for a com­ment yes­ter­day, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Den­nis Pul­chan said his of­fi­cers were com­mit­ted to the re­duc­tion of crime with­in the prison walls and will not turn a blind eye.

"Those ir­re­spon­si­ble of­fi­cers who at­tempt to traf­fic con­tra­band in prison will not be speared as well. This is a very good time to change your be­hav­iours and tru­ly serve the coun­try by not con­tribut­ing to in­mates’ law­less­ness. Case in point is the re­cent ar­rest of Pris­ons Of­fi­cer I Mark Ma­haraj," Pul­chan said.

Ma­haraj was grant­ed bail in the sum of $80,000 with a sure­ty, af­ter he ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court on Mon­day.

Ma­haraj, 36, of Jern­ingh­man Av­enue, Cunu­pia, was charged with pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na and tak­ing a dan­ger­ous drug in­to the prison on Ju­ly 11, 2021. Ma­haraj was ar­rest­ed and charged af­ter a rou­tine search at the Port-of-Spain Prison. Dur­ing the search, four pack­ets of mar­i­jua­na with a com­bined weight of one kilo­gram were al­leged­ly found on the of­fi­cer. He is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear on Au­gust 9 to an­swer to the charges.