One of the men al­leged­ly in­volved in the casi­no rob­bery in Debe on Sat­ur­day was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody when he ap­peared in court on four charges.

El­isha Lingchung, 23, a painter, of Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas plead­ed not guilty on Tues­day in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court.

The charges stemmed from an armed rob­bery at In­stant Win­ner Mem­ber Club, at SS Erin Road, Debe, which went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia as a hostage sit­u­a­tion.

It turned out that no one was held hostage. Lingchung was ar­rest­ed by po­lice at Mo­hess Road, Debe, short­ly af­ter the rob­bery. He was charged with armed rob­bery by PC Craw­ford of the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion.

It is al­leged that on June 8, armed with a firearm to­geth­er with oth­er peo­ple he robbed em­ploy­ee Nico­lette Ja­groop of two re­mote con­trols val­ued $500, a $25 pack of Mt D’or cig­a­rettes and a $20 cig­a­rette lighter. He is al­leged he al­so used per­son­al vi­o­lence dur­ing the in­ci­dent. He is al­so ac­cused of rob­bing Ra­jku­mar Mo­tee, a pa­tron, of a $200 cell­phone, a $20 bank card, a $50 iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card and a $500 dri­ver’s per­mit. It is fur­ther al­leged that he robbed an­oth­er pa­tron, Maya Gookhiedeen Lal­la, of $1,000, a $500 dri­ver’s per­mit, a $200 purse and a cell­phone val­ued $500. The oth­er charge al­leged that he robbed em­ploy­ee Vidya Goor­cha­ran of $58,354 which be­longed to the casi­no.

In his bail ap­pli­ca­tion, at­tor­ney Ains­ley Lucky said, “These charges have gained quite a lot of no­to­ri­ety since the in­cep­tion. The whole of Trinidad and To­ba­go know Debe came to a stand­still when this was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed on Sat­ur­day.”

Mag­is­trate In­dar Ja­groo, how­ev­er, said he was un­aware of the in­ci­dent. Lucky said Lingchung, a fa­ther of two, had two pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, but the charges are still bail­able of­fences.

He said the ac­cused has no pass­port and will be ac­count­able for every court ap­pear­ance.

“At this stage of the pro­ceed­ings, he should not be held guilty of it, even though peo­ple in this so­ci­ety like to talk. This is talk­ing so­ci­ety, noth­ing has start­ed yet,” said Lucky. How­ev­er, pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip asked for an op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a fin­ger­print trace done to ob­tain the pris­on­er’s crim­i­nal record. The mag­is­trate de­nied him bail and ad­journed the mat­ter to Thurs­day.