Af­ter spend­ing close to three days in cus­tody, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC and UNC Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen were last night charged over their al­leged roles in a mul­ti-mil­lion le­gal fee kick­back con­spir­a­cy.

Sources close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion said Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen were charged with con­spir­ing to en­gage in mon­ey laun­der­ing, cor­rup­tion and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. Sim­i­lar charges were laid against the State’s co­op­er­at­ing wit­ness British Queen’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son on Wednes­day. Nel­son has signed a plea agree­ment with the State to tes­ti­fy against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

De­tec­tives as­signed to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau (ACIB) were hop­ing to com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tion on Thurs­day night to al­low both men to ap­pear in court to an­swer the charges yes­ter­day morn­ing. How­ev­er, their plans were de­railed af­ter both Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen com­plained of feel­ing un­well at dif­fer­ent times be­tween Thurs­day night and yes­ter­day morn­ing and had to be tak­en sep­a­rate­ly to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

The change of plans meant that by the time the men were of­fi­cial­ly charged late last night, they would have had to spend the week­end in po­lice cus­tody un­til they could ap­pear be­fore a mag­is­trate on Mon­day morn­ing.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the duo’s le­gal team was ex­pect­ed to ask se­nior of­fi­cers with­in the unit if their clients could be grant­ed sta­tion bail, which would al­low them to be re­leased be­fore Mon­day’s hear­ing.

Sta­tion bail is usu­al­ly grant­ed to per­sons charged with non-vi­o­lent crimes dur­ing week­ends. It is al­lowed at the dis­cre­tion of the po­lice and is ap­proved by a Jus­tice of the Peace.

While the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the con­spir­a­cy start­ed al­most three years ago, it reached a crit­i­cal stage on Wednes­day morn­ing af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors ex­e­cut­ed an ar­rest war­rant for Ram­lo­gan at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port around 4.15 am. Ram­lo­gan was about to board a flight to Mi­a­mi to con­nect to the British Vir­gin Is­lands (BVI), where he was ex­pect­ed to rep­re­sent the Speak­er of BVI’s House As­sem­bly Ju­lian Wilcox. Ramdeen sur­ren­dered to in­ves­ti­ga­tors two hours lat­er.

On Wednes­day evening, po­lice ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants at the duo’s homes in south Trinidad and at Ramdeen’s of­fice at Cor­ne­lio Street, Wood­brook. Dur­ing the search­es, which last­ed well in­to the night, in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­port­ed­ly seized sev­er­al elec­tron­ic de­vices and doc­u­ments.

De­tec­tives at­tempt­ed to in­ter­view both men on Thurs­day evening but had to cut Ram­lo­gan’s in­ter­view short af­ter he com­plained of feel­ing un­well and had to be tak­en for treat­ment. Ram­lo­gan’s in­ter­view re­sumed around mid­day yes­ter­day and was com­plet­ed sev­er­al hours lat­er.

Ramdeen’s in­ter­view was re­port­ed­ly com­plet­ed on Thurs­day but he com­plained of feel­ing un­well while Ram­lo­gan was be­ing in­ter­viewed. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that doc­tors at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal di­ag­nosed that he was suf­fer­ing from de­hy­dra­tion and kept him for sev­er­al hours as they ad­min­is­tered in­tra­venous flu­ids and Panadol.

Around 5 pm, Ramdeen was cleared by doc­tors and tak­en back in­to po­lice cus­tody. Ramdeen’s lawyers al­so threat­ened to file a habeas cor­pus writ chal­leng­ing his de­ten­tion for 48 hours with­out be­ing charged yes­ter­day morn­ing but did not go through with it af­ter he was hos­pi­talised.

Sources said short­ly af­ter 6 pm in­ves­ti­ga­tors put the fin­ish­ing touch­es on the file and sought ad­vice from Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, who kept his of­fice open in an­tic­i­pa­tion of a late vis­it.

About the In­ves­ti­ga­tion

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion cen­tres around al­most $1 bil­lion in le­gal fees which was paid to pri­vate le­gal prac­ti­tion­ers rep­re­sent­ing the state and state com­pa­nies in le­gal pro­ceed­ings dur­ing Ram­lo­gan’s tenure be­tween 2010 and 2015.

The law­suits in­clud­ed sev­er­al over al­leged cor­rup­tion which oc­curred un­der the pre­vi­ous Patrick Man­ning regime.

It is al­leged that a per­cent­age of the fees, which were paid through the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to the lawyers, was al­leged­ly giv­en back to Ram­lo­gan.

On Thurs­day, British Queen’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son, who has Ja­maican roots, ap­peared in court to an­swer three con­spir­a­cy charges over his role. Nel­son is ac­cused of con­spir­ing with Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen to re­ceive, con­ceal and trans­fer crim­i­nal prop­er­ty, name­ly the re­wards giv­en to Ram­lo­gan by Nel­son for be­ing ap­point­ed to rep­re­sent the State in sev­er­al cas­es; of con­spir­ing with them to cor­rupt­ly give Ram­lo­gan a per­cent­age of the funds and of con­spir­ing with them to make Ram­lo­gan mis­be­have in pub­lic of­fice by re­ceiv­ing the funds.

Nel­son, who ben­e­fit­ed from over $20 mil­lion in le­gal briefs, has signed a plea bar­gain agree­ment, un­der which he is ex­pect­ed to tes­ti­fy against the duo in ex­change for im­mu­ni­ty or a re­duced sen­tence. He has been re­leased on $100,000 bail and al­lowed to leave the coun­try for med­ical treat­ment. His lawyers al­so claimed that his safe­ty would be at risk.

Nel­son is sched­uled to re­turn to Trinidad lat­er this month or ear­ly next month for his plea as­sess­ment hear­ing be­fore a High Court Judge.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the probe may ex­tend to oth­er lawyers, both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al, who would have re­ceived State briefs un­der Ram­lo­gan’s tenure.