A 31-year-old au­to-painter ac­cused of gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty has been grant­ed $90,000 bail.

Jean-Michel Sta­ple, of Cane Farm Av­enue, Trinci­ty, was grant­ed bail as he reap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Jo-Anne Con­nor in the Ari­ma Mag­is­trate’s Court on Fri­day.

Sta­ple ini­tial­ly ap­peared to­geth­er with two po­lice of­fi­cers, who are al­so ac­cused of be­ing af­fil­i­at­ed with a gang from Jit­man Dri­ve, Five Rivers, Arou­ca, on Thurs­day, but was de­nied bail be­cause his crim­i­nal record trac­ing was not avail­able in time for his court ap­pear­ance.

When he reap­peared yes­ter­day, Con­nor was in­formed he had a con­vic­tion for mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion and a pend­ing case for firearm pos­ses­sion. As part of the con­di­tions of his bail, he was or­dered to re­port to po­lice once week­ly.

Sta­ple, who was rep­re­sent­ed by Criston J Williams, will reap­pear in court on April 3.

PC An­ge­lo Ce­de­no, 40, from Jit­man Dri­ve, Five Rivers, Arou­ca, was charged for mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice by traf­fick­ing co­caine and sup­ply­ing am­mu­ni­tion to his neigh­bour Ken “Re­nal­do” Gomez.

He was al­so charged un­der Sec­tion 9 of the An­ti-Gang Act for coun­selling and pro­vid­ing sup­port to the gang op­er­at­ing in his com­mu­ni­ty, which car­ries a sen­tence of 25 years im­pris­on­ment up­on con­vic­tion. Ce­de­no is al­leged to have com­mit­ted the of­fences be­tween 2017 and ear­li­er this year.

PC Don Bal­go­b­in, 39, of KP Lands, Va­len­cia, was not charged un­der the gang leg­is­la­tion but rather for ac­cept­ing an undis­closed bribe from Gomez for for­go­ing a mar­i­jua­na traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­tween March and May, last year. Gomez and oth­er al­leged mem­bers of his gang have al­ready ap­peared in court on gang charges.

Ce­de­no, Bal­go­b­in and Sta­ple were among a group of po­lice of­fi­cers and civil­ians who were de­tained as part of a re­cent in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Or­gan­ised Crime and In­tel­li­gence Unit (OCIU). In­ves­ti­ga­tors had to ob­tain de­ten­tion or­ders un­der the an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion in or­der to keep the men in cus­tody while in­ves­ti­ga­tions were on­go­ing.

The or­ders, which al­lowed the men to be held with­out be­ing charged un­til to­day, were up­held by High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds, last week.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that some of the sus­pects, in­clud­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer re­lat­ed to for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, were re­leased af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­ceived ad­vice from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).