Three men from east Port-of-Spain have been freed of gang charges af­ter Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle yes­ter­day up­held their no-case sub­mis­sion.

An­cil Shawn Vil­lafana, Kevon Isa­iah Franklyn, and Keedel Fabi­an Mon­trose, all of Beetham Gar­dens walked out of the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court ac­com­pa­nied by their at­tor­neys.

Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle had re­ject­ed claims by po­lice pros­e­cu­tors that the Bail (Amend­ment) Act, which pre­cludes bail for re­peat of­fend­ers charged with vi­o­lent crimes, ap­plied to the trio’s case.

In ear­li­er pro­ceed­ings, the Chief Mag­is­trate ac­knowl­edged they all had pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions and pend­ing cas­es for mi­nor of­fences which were not cov­ered by the act.

She ruled that they could not re­ly on a pro­vi­sion of the leg­is­la­tion which pre­cludes bail to peo­ple who were ac­cused of com­mit­ting of­fences with firearms in their pos­ses­sion, as they could not pro­vide ev­i­dence to but­tress their al­le­ga­tions.

Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle up­held the po­lice claim over the trio’s po­ten­tial to in­tim­i­date the State’s main wit­ness in the case—and had ad­vised them to ap­ply to a High Court judge for bail.

Vil­lafana and Franklyn were both charged with be­ing the lead­ers of an un­named gang, while all three were charged with pro­vid­ing sup­port to a gang in the com­mis­sion of gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty.

The of­fences were al­leged to have tak­en place be­tween Sep­tem­ber 27, 2023 and April 10, 2024.

Vil­lafana de­nied he was known as “Chemist” and “Pre­si”; while Franklyn de­nied he was called “Fat Joe” and Mon­trose de­nied be­ing called “Fi­del”.

Vil­lafana was rep­re­sent­ed by Os­bourne Charles, SC and Ce­leste St Louis, while Richard Clarke-Wills and Adri­an Thomp­son rep­re­sent­ed Franklyn and Mon­trose.