A po­lice of­fi­cer ap­peared in court on Monday charged with steal­ing six panties from PriceS­mart, Ch­agua­nas branch and was re­leased on $200,000 bail.

Sgt Rauff Ho­sein, 48, plead­ed not guilty to the lar­ce­ny charge when he ap­peared be­fore Ch­agua­nas First Court Mag­is­trate Adri­an Dar­manie. The charge al­leged that at the busi­ness place on Fri­day, he stole the six un­der­wears val­ued $107.95.

Ho­sein, of Rio Claro, was last at­tached to the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion, but he is on va­ca­tion. The of­fi­cer is said to have more than 25 years of ser­vice.

The po­lice were called to the busi­ness place on Fri­day around 2.30 pm af­ter an em­ploy­ee al­leged­ly saw Ho­sein pick up the panties from the shelves, put them in­to his pants pock­et and walk out the store with­out pay­ing for them.

It is al­leged that when the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers con­front­ed the of­fi­cer and he told them he was a po­lice sergeant and last worked at the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion, but was on va­ca­tion.

Po­lice Con­sta­bles PC Vil­lafana and Duprey ar­rest­ed Ho­sein at the store and took him to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion. In­sp Man­ick con­duct­ed in­quiries and charged him on Sat­ur­day.

Ho­sein was sub­se­quent­ly grant­ed bail by the Jus­tice of the Peace at the sta­tion. When he ap­peared in court yes­ter­day, the mag­is­trate al­lowed his bail to con­tin­ue. He was rep­re­sent­ed by an at­tor­ney while Court pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Wait­he ap­peared in the mat­ter. How­ev­er, the file will have to be sent to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for a State at­tor­ney to be ap­point­ed to pros­e­cute the mat­ter.

The case was trans­ferred to the Sec­ond Court for Jan­u­ary 28, 2019.

Ho­sein has a pend­ing case for lar­ce­ny be­fore the High Court, po­lice said.