TROUBLE AT THE ‘PALACE’ A video clip submitted to the NBI on Wednesday by the management of Palace Pool Club purportedly shows the moment actress Ana Capri was sexually assaulted by a still-unidentified man on April 2. Photos by Lyn Rillon
Capri earlier decried how the Taguig City-based establishment refused to disclose the man’s identity.
Days after seeking help from the National Bureau of Investigation, actress Ana Capri on Wednesday obtained a video clip which she said would support the sexual assault complaint she had lodged against a still-unidentified man at a club in Taguig City.
“This is proof that I’m telling the truth. Some said I just made it all up, that I was just acting. Nobody wants to be sexually assaulted, so here’s the proof,” Capri told reporters after Carl Velasco, security manager of Palace Pool Club, submitted a copy of a security camera video to the NBI.
The bureau issued a subpoena for the video after her demand for a copy went unanswered for 10 days. Assisted by lawyer Philip Jurado, Capri has told her story to the NBI’s Anti-Organized and Transnational Crime Division.
The actress alleged that a man grabbed her buttocks while she was charging her phone at the club, near the pool’s towel area, around 3:56 a.m. on April 2.
Capri said she angrily asked the man why he did it—and then slapped him in the face. The man didn’t say a word but slapped her back and pointed at her face as though holding a gun, she added.
A lifeguard then approached the two and led the man away. Capri said she later asked the club for the man’s name but the club refused to give that information.
“The next thing I knew, they were already escorting him out. There was no apology. He even told me that I’m complaining because my ego was hurt. What!? Someone sexually assaulted me inside the club and he’s telling me it’s about my ego,” Capri said.
But Capri noted that the footage brought to the NBI by Velasco was “not complete” and may not be enough to establish the identify of the man who assaulted her. “The NBI told him to submit other (clips) and ensure that they were not edited.”
Quoting Velasco, she said the man who groped her was “a friend of a guest” at the club. Her other sources, meanwhile, said that guest was “a rich Chinese businessman.”
The incident also left her disappointed with the security measures of the club, Capri added.