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Cop faces more human-trafficking charges

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Published: 
Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Police Constable Valentine Eastman is to be slapped with three new human trafficking charges. When Eastman, 52, re-appeared in the San Fernando Magistrates Court on Monday to answer ten similar charges, his lawyer Subhas Panday said he had information that there were three new charges against his client. Panday asked Deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington to read the charges to his client.

 

 

Wellington said the charges could not be read since the information was not properly prepared. “He is not properly before the court,” Wellington said, adding that there was no warrant or summons attached to the proceedings. In that case, Panday said it would be unfair to remand Eastman in custody until that was sorted out. Adjourning the matter to June 13, the magistrate ordered the police to serve Eastman with a summons to appear in court on the new charges and at that time the fresh charges would be read to him. 

 

Last month Eastman, who has 25 years service and was last assigned to the Mon Repos Police Station, was charged with ten human trafficking offences against three Colombian women. He was granted $350,000 bail. The charges alleged that he transported the women to Vistabella for the purpose of exploiting them for prostitution and receiving the women into the country or transporting or harbouring them for the purpose of exploitation.

 

He was charged after the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit launched an investigation into allegations made by the women. Eastman, of St Julien Village, Princes Town, is the first person in T&T to be charged under the Trafficking in Persons Act of 2011.


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