A V.I. Police sergeant due to stand trial next week on charges of extortion and bribery first faces federal weapons charges in a separate but related trial that began Wednesday in District Court.

Federal agents testifying Wednesday said that after they arrested VIPD Sgt. George Greene on separate charges last August, they found two loaded handguns with defaced serial numbers stuffed in white athletic socks stashed in Greene’s unmarked police vehicle.

Inside a backpack, where they found the weapons zipped inside a shaving kit, they also discovered a book entitled “The Art of Deception,” a DVD called “Never Get Busted Again,” and a black ski mask with a skull printed on the front.

“I pretend to be a dirty police officer to gain the confidence of criminals.” That’s what Greene allegedly told federal agents after his Aug. 4 arrest, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Nolan Paige in his opening remarks Wednesday.

Greene told them he had used the guns as props to catch criminals and to extract information on the street, according to two federal agents who testified. They backed up Greene’s claim to have solved at least one murder investigation that way.

“There is nothing to indicate that this was part of normal police work,” Paige told the jury, warning them that the defense would dismiss as shoddy police work Greene’s keeping loaded and illegal weapons unsecured in a vehicle, instead of turning them in to the VIPD forensics or evidence room.

Greene “knowingly possessed two firearms that were clearly obliterated contrary to the law,” Paige said as he wrapped up his opening remarks Wednesday.

Defense attorney Thurston McKelvin said Greene and another officer found the weapons last April or May in a VIPD store room with no indication to whom or what case they belonged.

Greene had every intention of handing them over to the proper authorities, McKelvin said, but between May and August he was waylaid by vacations and illness and was arrested on extortion charges before he had time to get them to federal authorities.

In a twist that seemed to rattle McKelvin some, Judge John E. Jones III granted the prosecution’s motion to admit into evidence a reprimand Greene received from a supervisor within a week of being arrested.

Prosecutors said Greene had been disciplined for keeping confiscated marijuana in his VIPD office desk without officially recording it in the system. Jones said it was relevant to the government’s case that Greene has a history of violating or disregarding rules on police evidence. That evidence is expected emerge on the second, and likely final, day of the trial Thursday.

The two weapons charges against Greene first appeared in a federal indictment charging him and codefendants VIPD Capt. Enrique Saldana and civilian Luis Roldan with multiple counts of extortion, bribery, conspiracy and conflict of interest.

The charges were then severed by Chief District Court Judge Curtis Gomez before the extortion trial in December. That trial resulted in a hung jury and mistrial on Dec. 22 and is scheduled to be retried on Jan. 25, regardless of the outcome of the trial that opened Wednesday.

Motions by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Lindquist filed earlier this month resulted in having the weapons charges returned to the docket and sending Greene back to court.

For most of the afternoon Wednesday, prosecutors labored to establish how weapons are supposed to be handled in legitimate police work, calling to the stand DEA and FBI agents who enforced the federal search warrant after Greene’s arrest on Aug. 4 and discovered the weapons in his unmarked SUV.

While describing in detail the illicit contents of the backpack found in Greene’s car, the agents served a dual purpose to the prosecution by also describing the exhaustive procedures they underwent to document, photograph, seize, secure and examine the two .38 caliber handguns, literature and ski mask before they submitted them as official evidence.

In addition to the agents, prosecutors also called to the stand a VIPD ballistics expert and weapons examiner, a former chief of VIPD investigations, a head of police records, and the VIPD property room clerk to illustrate the many official VIPD procedures Greene should have followed to record and secure the weapons.

Paige and Lindquist painted a stark contrast between standard police procedures and Greene’s unorthodox approach.

“Did you see anything to indicate that they [the handguns] were kept in a chain of custody,” Lindquist asked DEA Special Agent Andrew Arthurton Wednesday.

“Absolutely not,” Arthurton replied.

Judge Jones called for a recess just after 5 p.m. Wednesday, leaving VIPD chief Rodney Querrard as the prosecution’s first witness on deck Thursday morning.

Jones told the jury that after the defense presents its case Thursday, the case would be in their hands by sometime that afternoon.

After that, Greene is scheduled back in federal court on Jan. 25 alongside codefendants Saldana and Roldan.