For­mer school teacher Robin Ma­haraj was grant­ed $10,000 bail on three charges of im­per­son­at­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer.

Ma­haraj plead­ed not guilty dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore Siparia Mag­is­trate Aden Stroude.

The court heard that Ma­haraj was the own­er of a safe­ty sup­plies com­pa­ny and he is a health and safe­ty in­spec­tor. The 58-year-old man is ac­cused of re­peat­ed­ly pre­sent­ing him­self as a Po­lice In­spec­tor at the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion.

He was ar­rest­ed last Fri­day at the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) and of­fi­cers of the Siparia Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID).

It is al­leged that po­lice searched his Eyg­pt Vil­lage, En­deav­our home and found a ve­hi­cle fit­ted with a ra­dio set and swiv­el lights. He was charged by Cpl Thomp­son on Mon­day.

Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Jesse Jit­mans­ingh did not ob­ject to bail as he had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions or pend­ing mat­ters.

The mag­is­trate ap­proved Ma­haraj’s broth­er as his sure­ty.

The mat­ter was ad­journed to Feb­ru­ary 16.