THE Court of Appeals (CA) has denied a motion by businessman Cedric Lee to drop the criminal case filed against him by actor Ferdinand “Vhong” Navarro in 2014.
In a 12-page decision penned by Associate Justice Angelene Mary Quimpo-Sales, the CA’s Seventh Division affirmed the order issued by the Regional Trial Court of Taguig City in 2019 which denied Lee’s plea to dismiss the serious illegal detention for ransom case filed by the actor.
Lee filed a motion to dismiss the case after the trial court denied his second demurrer to evidence in its order dated May 27, 2019, which is disallowed under the Rules of Court.
The Rules of Court likewise does not provide for a remedy of motion to dismiss.
The appellate court said Lee failed to substantiate his claim that the trial court committed grave abuse of direction in denying his motion.
“Petitioner, in his motion to dismiss before the trial court, also argued that even assuming the information is complete, the case must still be dismissed for failure of the prosecution to prove all the elements of the crime charged…This argument was already raised in his demurrer to evidence therefore, the trial court correctly treated the motion to dismiss a second demurrer to evidence,” the CA said.
Lee earlier claimed he “performed a citizen’s arrest of (the) private complainant because the latter was caught committing in flagrante delicto the crime of attempted rape against Cornejo.”
The case stemmed from a charge filed by Navarro in connection with the January 22, 2014 incident which took place at the condominium of model Deniece Cornejo in Bonifacio Global City where the actor was accused by the latter of raping her and committing acts of lasciviousness.
Navarro has denied the accusation and claimed that he was illegally detained by Lee’s group and was threatened using firearms.
Navarro claimed that Lee’s group mauled and threatened to kill him if he will not cough up P200,000 which was later upped to P2 million.
Navarro said he settled for P1 million.
The CA has earlier reversed and set aside the 2018 and 2020 resolutions of the Department of Justice which dismissed the complaint filed by Cornejo in 2014, which prompted the DOJ to file criminal charges against Navarro before a trial court in Taguig City.
On September 19, 2022, the Taguig Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 116 issued a resolution after it found probable cause to place Navarro under trial for acts of lasciviousness and ordered the actor to post a P36,000 bail.
On the same day, the Taguig RTC Branch 69 issued a warrant of arrest against Navarro for rape, which is a non-bailable offense.
Navarro is currently detained at the National Bureau of Investigation headquarters.
Also included in the case filed by Navarro were Cornejo, Bernice Cua Lee, Simeon Palma Raz Jr., Jose Paolo Gregorio Calma, Sajed Fernandez Abuhijeleh, and Ferdinand Guerrero.
