Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The ex-hus­band of deputy Ch­agua­nas May­or Melis­sa Jadoo­nanan has been grant­ed bail in the sum of $400,000 for a mar­i­jua­na re­lat­ed of­fence.

Po­lice said Kishon Singh, a fa­ther of two from Fac­to­ry Road, Ch­agua­nas, was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers on Mon­day at his home when they went to ex­e­cute a war­rant for an il­le­gal firearm and am­mu­ni­tion.

Dur­ing a search of the house, of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly de­tect­ed the strong scent of mar­i­jua­na.
Po­lice said Singh en­tered two tents on the premis­es along with of­fi­cers.

There, the of­fi­cers al­leged­ly no­ticed sev­er­al pot­ted green plants and seedlings re­sem­bling mar­i­jua­na, along with fer­tilis­ers, light­ing fix­tures, house­hold fans and a pro­fes­sion­al hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tem.

Po­lice said Singh was in­formed by the of­fi­cers that he was on­ly al­lowed to have four plants by law. He was re­port­ed­ly cau­tioned.

Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Crime Scene of­fi­cers ar­rived at the scene and pho­tographed the plants and the oth­er items.

Singh was then ar­rest­ed and tak­en to the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force Base.

Po­lice were said to have in­spect­ed and count­ed the plants and oth­er items in Singh’s pres­ence. The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly count­ed a to­tal of 68 grown plants with 48 seedlings.

Singh was then charged with the of­fence of cul­ti­vat­ing mar­i­jua­na.

Yes­ter­day, he ap­peared in court vir­tu­al­ly and was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Bhi­mal Ma­hara­jh. He plead­ed not guilty.

Singh’s at­tor­ney ar­gued in court that his client de­nied own­er­ship of the plants and high­light­ed the pres­ence of oth­er in­di­vid­u­als at the ad­dress. He re­quest­ed that if grant­ed bail, Singh be al­lowed to re­turn to the same ad­dress where he, his fa­ther and oth­er rel­a­tives re­side.

Ma­hara­jh al­so in­formed the court that Singh holds a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a health and safe­ty man­ag­er.

De­spite the at­tor­ney’s plea for le­nien­cy, Singh was placed on $400,000 bail.

Ch­agua­nas deputy May­or Jadoo­nanan told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that she was made aware of the in­ci­dent.