Deniece Cornejo now behind bars
Deniece Cornejo surrenders herself at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame.
PNP-PIO Photo
MANILA, Philippines–After deciding to face the music, Deniece Cornejo will spend her first night in jail at a cell at the Anti-Transnational Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.
Chief Inspector Elizabeth Jasmin, CIDG Information officer, told INQUIRER.net that Cornejo was brought Monday night to jail where she joined about seven to eight female suspects held for human trafficking activities.
After almost two weeks in hiding, Cornejo personally turned herself in to the authorities at the PNP Headquarters in Camp Crame around 4 p.m.
She was accompanied by her relatives and lawyers Ariel Magtibay Jr. and Connie Jimenez. Then they went to the office of PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima for a brief dialogue.
Cornejo – along with businessman Cedric Lee, Simeon Palma and several others – has been charged with serious illegal detention, a nonbailable offense in connection with the Jan. 22 mauling of Navarro at a rented condominium unit of Cornejo in Taguig City.
Lee and Palma were arrested on April 27 in Eastern Samar. The arrest warrants for Cornejo and the two were issued last April 21.
Police Director Benjamin Magalong, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief, said in a press briefing that Cornejo and her relatives had sent surrender feelers last week.
He said Chief Superintendent Tom Bañas, PNP Human Rights Affairs Office chief and a family friend of Cornejo, received the feelers and arranged the date for her surrender on May 5.
“She was under so much stress… She was very subdued. She would rather prefer to be silent,” Magalong said when asked about her condition.
Personal choice
Magalong said it was Cornejo’s “personal choice” to surrender to the PNP and not to the NBI in Manila, where Lee and Palma are detained.
Despite this, Magalong assured that Cornejo would not be given any special treatment.
“She will be treated like [an ordinary suspect],” he said.
But before Cornejo surrendered, Magalong said relatives of Cornejo had asked the police to “respect” the rights of the model.
“(They asked us) na ‘wag siyang bastusin, ‘wag muna siyang interbyuhin, at ‘wag magpalabas ng pictures na embarrassing ang mukha niya,” he added.
No info on co-accused yet
Aside from Cornejo, Lee and Palma, suspects Jed Fernandez, Jose Paolo Calma and Ferdinand Guerrero have yet to acknowledge their arrest warrants.
Asked if Cornejo’s co-accused are sending surrender feelers, Magalong said, “to be honest, we do not have information on others yet.”
Magalong said Cornejo would be presented on Tuesday morning to Taguig RTC to return her warrant of arrest.
The court of origin will then release a commitment order and decide where Cornejo would be properly detained.
Last April 16, Cornejo posted a P12,000 bail for her grave coercion case, also in relation to the mauling of Navarro.
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