3 appear on gang-related charges

ANCEL Villafana, Kevin Franklyn and Kedel Montrose, three men charged with gang-related activities, denied their aliases before Chief Magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle in the eighth magistrates' court in Port of Spain.

The three, whose aliases are allegedly “Prezi/Chemist,” “Fat Joe” and “Fidel” respectively, denied being called by any of those names.

Earle-Caddle, reading the charges, asked each of the men whether they were called by the aliases. They all said no.

They are expected to return to the eighth magistrates’ court to be told whether or not they would be granted bail.

The trio were charged with providing support to a gang in gang activity and two of the three, Villafana and Franklyn, were charged with being leaders of a gang.

The charges were laid indictably.

Prosecutors tried to argue they should be denied bail, based on evidence that indicated the men may have had been in possession of firearms while committing the offences.

That argument was, however, shot down by defence lawyers.

The prosecutors then argued the three men had committed previous offences, but admitted that their criminal tracking system had been down since last Thursday, and they were not sure how long the system would be out of action.

They did, however, have a preliminary list of charges laid against the three men. But there was still confusion as to which of the matters were pending or completed.

The magistrate said she would need time to peruse the list, and in the meantime gave prosecutors 48 hours to acquire a proper tracking of the trio’s pending matters and the status of each.

Their case was adjourned to Thursday.