MANILA – Businessman Cedric Lee and model Deniece Cornejo, together with a certain Simeon “Zimmer” Raz, have been granted a P500,000 bail by the Taguig Regional Trial Court Branch 153, affirming Taguig RTC Branch 271’s earlier ruling.
The three were filed with a serious illegal detention case by television host-actor Vhong Navarro. Prosecutors appealed for the reversal of the initial court’s ruling but were denied when they failed to present new evidences that would prove the severity of the case.
“No new and substantial issues have been raised by the prosecution that would merit the court to rule otherwise in its favor. There is no more need for the court to belabor and discuss in this order what has already been extensively discussed in the assailed order,” the Taguig RTC Branch 153 said.
The initial court granted Lee, Cornejo and Raz’ bail plea as it was clear that ‘the motive for that alleged illegal detention by the accused of the private complainant was unclear.’
“There are several hypothesis pre-offered for the single act of detention. This being so, although there is probable cause for the charging of the crime of serious illegal detention, the prosecution had failed to provide strong evidence that said illegal detention is actually serious or actually for the sake of kidnapping. In such a case, the court has the duty to grant the accused bail,” Taguig RTC Branch 271 said in its earlier ruling.
Despite the present court’s decision, the prosecutors could still present new evidences since ‘what has been resolved in the petition for bail is not the merits of the case but only whether or not the accused are entitled to bail.’
“It has not yet gone to the heart of the case. Thus, the prosecution would still be allowed to present its evidence-in-chief to support the charge of serious illegal detention against all accused,” the Taguig RTC Branch 153 said further.
Navarro’s lawyers, however, were disappointed by the court’s ruling as they were ‘very sure that a serious crime has been committed.’ They were also confident with their evidences such as the CCTV footage showing Navarro being mauled, the National Bureau of Investigation and Navarro’s testimony, among others.