Two po­lice of­fi­cers and a civil­ian, ac­cused of steal­ing 40 bullfinch­es from a man and sell­ing them, have been grant­ed bail af­ter be­ing charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and mon­ey laun­der­ing. 

PC Dar­ryl Pha­goo, 27, PC David Bak­er, 29, and Nazi­amod­een Ali. 39, of Diego Mar­tin, were grant­ed bail by Jus­tice of the Peace Abrahim Ali (no re­la­tion) af­ter be­ing charged by de­tec­tives of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) last Fri­day. 

While all three men were charged with mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice and mon­ey laun­der­ing, PCs Pha­goo and Bak­er were sep­a­rate­ly charged with an­oth­er mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charge for de­mand­ing a firearm from the vic­tim as a bribe to for­bear act­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers in the de­tec­tion of a crime. 

PC Pha­goo was sole­ly charged for do­ing an act which had the ten­den­cy to per­vert the course of jus­tice. 

PC Pha­goo, who was last as­signed to the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion, was grant­ed $175,000 bail to cov­er his four charges, while Bak­er, who was last as­signed to the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion, was grant­ed $150,000 bail to cov­er his three charges. Ali was grant­ed $75,000 bail for his two charges. 

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit, the charges stem from an in­ci­dent on April 4. 

The vic­tim made arrange­ments to sell 40 bullfinch­es to a man for $10,000 when he was ap­proached by the two of­fi­cers, who al­leged­ly told him it was il­le­gal to have the birds in his po­si­tion. 

“The of­fi­cers then al­leged­ly asked the vic­tim what he could do for them and he of­fered the birds to the of­fi­cers,” the re­lease stat­ed. 

It claimed that the of­fi­cers de­mand­ed a gun from the vic­tim but he re­fused and they took the birds. 

The of­fi­cers then al­leged­ly met with the orig­i­nal buy­er and sold him the birds for $8,000. 

The vic­tim re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to the PSB and an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed by Se­nior Supt Suzette Mar­tin, Supt Mon­trichard, In­spec­tors Nar­ine and Syl­van. 

The of­fi­cers and Ali was ar­rest­ed last week and were charged af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors sought the ad­vice of Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC. 

The three men are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates; Court on May 31.