Vhong Navarro, Deniece Cornejo and Cedric Lee. Images from FACEBOOK/INQUIRER FILES
The Taguig Regional Trial Court (RTC) on Thursday sentenced businessman Cedric Lee, model Deniece Cornejo and two others to reclusion perpetua or a prison term of 20 to 40 years for serious illegal detention and extortion, charges that first grabbed the headlines in 2014 when filed by actor-host Vhong Navarro.
The celebrated case saw Navarro recounting the beatings he suffered at the hands of the accused and a photo of his swollen, black-eyed face splashed in the media. It also pitted his narration of events against Cornejo’s claim that he tried to rape her inside her condo unit at Bonifacio Global City (BGC).
In March 2023, after their legal battle had dragged on for nine years in the Department of Justice and later in the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court dismissed Cornejo’s complaints against Navarro for rape and acts of lasciviousness, citing lack of probable cause.
Ordered arrested
Like the Supreme Court, the Taguig RTC did not buy Cornejo’s accusation of rape, concluding instead that she actually “lured” Navarro to her place so that the other accused can detain and extort money from him.
Judge Mariam Bien of Taguig RTC Branch No. 153 also ordered Lee, Cornejo and two other convicts—Ferdinand Guerrero and Simeon “Zimmer” Raz—to pay Navarro a total of P300,000 in civil, moral and exemplary damages.
Cornejo and Raz were taken into custody by court officers after the promulgation.
Lee and Guerrero did not attend the proceedings, prompting the judge to issue warrants for their arrest.
According to Dana Sandoval, spokesperson for the Bureau of Immigration (BI), Lee remains covered by a hold departure order issued in 2014 and an arrest warrant issued in 2015.
Guerrero, on the other hand, has an active arrest warrant and an immigration lookout bulletin order in the BI’s system since 2014.
Premeditated
“The BI is committed to implement said orders if subjects are encountered in any ports of entry or exit,” Sandoval said on Thursday, shortly after news broke of their conviction.
In a 94-page decision, the court said, “It is all too apparent that the accused planned and premeditated to restrain Vhong Navarro to extort money from him.”
When pieced together, the actions of Cornejo, Lee, Raz and Guerrero “reveal that they acted in concert with one another and that their acts emanated from the same purpose or common design showing unity in its execution,” it said.
The incident became public in January 2014 when Cornejo’s group brought a battered Navarro to the Southern Police District station in BGC, where she had him booked for alleged rape.
The Taguig court said “[it] does not believe the testimonies of Deniece Cornejo and Zimmer Raz that Vhong Navarro attempted to rape Deniece in her condo unit on January 22, 2014.”Meeting with cop
Instead, Cornejo “lured” Navarro to her condo unit so “that her coaccused attained their purpose of restraining Vhong Navarro and later on extort money from Vhong before dropping the blotter (rape complaint),” the court said.
Proof of the extortion was the BDO bank account number that Lee later sent via text message to Navarro, it added.
The court also found it “very unusual (that) the accused gathered in one place, with a police officer, a few hours before the intended meetup of Deniece Cornejo and Vhong Navarro.”
“Notably, at first, the accused concealed the fact of their meeting in Ritz Towers and eventually, after seeing the CCTV footage from Ritz Towers, the accused supplemented their counteraffidavits and changed their testimonies,” it said.
The court took their meeting with a police officer shortly before detaining Navarro as a sign of a conspiracy, adding:
“Proof of their agreement is inferred from their conduct before, during and after the commission of the crime disclosing a common understanding between them relative to its commission.” —With a report from Jane Bautista