Eight Months facing Police Accusations and Court, now Pedro Grant Exonerated
With no evidence to support their claim, the prosecution has dropped their case against Pedro Jose Alfredo Grant Gallon, the Dominican Republic citizen who was accused of impersonating an officer in September 2023.
The Police, who publicized the arrest and charge, have not yet commented on the matter despite Magnetic Media queries.
Grant, for his part, has always vehemently denied the accusations that he was impersonating an officer and described the circumstances surrounding his arrest as unfair.
He contends that on the evening of July 13, 2023, he was being followed by a strange driver, concerned, he waited until the man pulled off at a bar, then took his license plate number and called the police, but police never came to help Grant. He alleges that the next time he saw them, they came with handcuffs to arrest him. In a search, police found his IDs which included his documentation for humanitarian work with the International Diplomatic Alliance (IDA) and police lights attached to his vehicle. In explaining the possession of those lights, Grant said he told officers that they had been in his car from his time in the Dominican Republic where he was involved in law enforcement.
Since that time, Grant has maintained several facts:
- The Police did not have a warrant to search his home and car;
- The Police took his documents including passports and IDs, one of which was issued by the IDA, and to date have not returned them despite being court-ordered to do so;
- The Police intimidated his wife with threats of deportation;
- He never showed any ID, flashing lights at the man following him, or claimed to be an officer.
Police have steadfastly refused to comment on the case despite numerous queries into the bizarre circumstances, even with serious allegations like intimidation against them. Grant was officially charged with Impersonating an Officer in September but IDA Head Jerrod Crockett told Magnetic Media despite seizing documents from Grant to support their case, no one even called the organization to see if they were real or fake.
Now, when called to provide evidence to the court as to why they arrested and charged the resident, the police and DPPs office drew a complete blank as Wilkie Arthur, Magnetic Media Court Correspondent, confirmed it was a lack of evidence that got the case dropped.
Despite this win serious damage has been done Grant claims, describing his life as a ‘living hell’ and ‘miserable’ since the accusations were publicized.
The IDA says it has been affected as well.
“That really put a hurt on us for the last six to eight months now because of accusations of fraudulent documents that everybody else has seen. We’re trying to prove our legitimacy now because you guys can’t verify any documents— before you put everything out there as public information,” Crockett said of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force (RTCIPF)
The president also told our news team they had lost thousands of dollars in funding.
Following the closure of the case we reached out again to police to find out on what grounds Grant had been arrested and charged but no response was issued.