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Two men who claimed they were wrongfully detained by police investigating a 2021 robbery in Maloney have lost their false imprisonment lawsuit against the State.

Justice Frank Seepersad ruled that the four-to-five-hour detention of Kenya Pitman, of Maitagual, San Juan, and Michael Joseph, of Malick, Barataria, was reasonable given the circumstances of the investigation at the time. The court, however, declined to order the men to pay the state’s legal costs.

“The court cannot conclude that the period of detention was unreasonable in the circumstances,” Seepersad said in his oral decision after the trial on October 28.