THREE electrical technicians of the Guyana Power & Light (GPL) company appeared before Magistrate Leron Daly, charged with obtaining money under false pretense.

Quancy McKenzie, 31 of Galang Place, Ruimveldt; Garfield O’Neal, 32 of Diamond Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara and Alicia Steele, 29 of Lamaha Park, Georgetown were jointly charged. They pleaded not guilty to the charge.

It is alleged that on April 7, 2017 at Williams & Queen Street, Kitty with intent to steal, they demanded with menace from Mitra Persaud $40,000. It is further alleged that on April 10, 2017 at Williams & Queen Street, Kitty he obtained the sum of $65,000 from Mitra Persaud by falsely pretending that he was in a position to install a GPL meter at Persaud’s home with intent to defraud her. McKenzie pleaded not guilty to the offence; his attorney James Bond begged the Magistrate for him to be released on bail.

According to police prosecutor, Sanj Singh, on April 7, 2017, at about 12:00 hrs, the trio visited Mitra Persaud’s home in Kitty to investigate a meter problem, during which they told Persaud that her meter was tampered with and threatened to remove the instrument. The technicians demanded $40,000 from the victim which they received and left.

It is further alleged that on April 10, McKenzie returned to Persaud’s home and pretended that he was in a position to install a new meter for the sum of $65,000.  The victim became suspicions and reported the matter to the police and a sting operation was set up during which McKenzie was caught red-handed collecting the money from Persaud.

The prosecutor pointed out that during the police investigation, O’Neal and Steele were also arrested.  The Magistrate released the trio on $40,000 bail each while McKenzie was slapped with an additional bail of $60,000 for the other charge. The matter is adjourned until May 15, 2017.