MANILA — The Court of Appeals has junked businessman Cedric Lee’s bid to dismiss the serious illegal detention for ransom case filed by comedian-host Vhong Navarro against him and several others over a 2014 incident in Taguig.

The CA Seventeenth Division, in a decision dated October 28, 2022, dismissed Lee’s petition for certiorari, saying the Taguig City Regional Trial Court Branch 153 did not commit grave abuse of discretion in denying his motion to dismiss on procedural grounds.

Navarro accused Lee of detaining him on the night of January 22, 2014 in a condominium unit in Taguig City, where Lee, with other companions, mauled him and allegedly threatened to kill him.

Lee also allegedly demanded up to P2 million in exchange for Navarro’s release and the comedian-host agreed to shell out P1 million.

Charged with Lee is model Deniece Cornejo, who had claimed Navarro attempted to rape her that night. It is this rape allegation that Lee used as a justification to maul Navarro and to force him to admit to raping Cornejo at a police station that same night.

But CCTV footage later showed Cornejo stepping onto the elevator from her condo unit about a minute after Navarro stepped out of the elevator to go to her unit.

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Navarro’s camp had always maintained it was physically impossible for Navarro to have raped or tried to rape Cornejo in such a short time.

The other accused in the case are Bernice Lee, Simeon Raz, Jr., Jose Paolo Gregorio Calma, Jed Fernandez and Ferdinand Guerrero.

Lee had tried to move for the dismissal of the case twice.

In March 2019, he first filed a demurrer to evidence — essentially a motion to dismiss based on the prosecution’s failure to present sufficient evidence — but this was denied by the Taguig RTC in May 2019.

He then filed a motion to dismiss claiming the information or criminal charge failed to alleged an element of the crime — that it was committed by a private individual.

But the court considered it a second demurrer to evidence which is prohibited under the rules and junked the motion, which prompted Lee to go to the appellate court.

Initially dismissed in February 2020 due to several defects, the petition was reinstated in October of the same year.

Despite the reinstatement, the CA Seventeenth Division eventually junked the petition.

In a ruling penned by CA Associate Justice Angelene Mary Quimpo-Sale, the appellate court rejected Lee’s argument that the facts charged in the information do not constitute an offense.

Although the information failed to allege that the offender is a private individual, the court said “the failure to include the first element in the information is not fatal to the case” since the “acts constituting the offense of serious illegal detention for ransom under Article 267 of the Revised Penal Code” were expressly stated.

Lee, according to the court, in fact admitted that he is a private individual when he claimed in his demurrer to evidence that he was effecting a “citizen’s arrest” on Navarro, after allegedly catching him in the act of attempting to rape Cornejo. A citizen’s arrest is an arrest without a warrant implemented by a private person.

The appellate court pointed out Lee did not raise this same ground in the demurrer to evidence he previously filed.

It also dismissed Lee’s claim the prosecution failed to prove all the elements of serious illegal detention for ransom.

“This argument was already raised in his demurrer to evidence, therefore, the trial court correctly treated the motion to dismiss as a second demurrer to evidence,” the court said.

“The special civil action for certiorari will not operate to review the sufficiency of the prosecution's evidence. In the absence of a clear showing that the trial court has committed a grave abuse of discretion or acted in excess of jurisdiction, this Court will not annul an interlocutory order denying a motion to dismiss a criminal case,” it added.

CA associate justices Maria Elisa Sempio Diy and Rex Bernardo Pascual concurred in the ruling.

Lee and Cornejo are out on bail while Navarro is currently detained after another CA division ordered the filing of rape and acts of lasciviousness charges against him based on Cornejo’s allegations.

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Lee and Cornejo have also been convicted of grave coercion for mauling Navarro in the same incident.

• Cedric Lee, Deniece Cornejo guilty of grave coercion for mauling Vhong Navarro