THE Sandiganbayan convicted businesswoman Janet Napoles of seven counts of corruption of public officials and ordered her to pay the government close to P300 million.
This after Napoles escaped a plunder conviction in the pork barrel scam case against Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.
Earlier, the Sandigan acquitted Estrada of plunder case but convicted of indirect bribery.
The anti-graft court’s Fifth Division directed Napoles to indemnify the government P262.034 million with interest of 6 percent per annum from the finality of the decision until full payment.
This constitutes the actual damages that the government suffered from Napoles’ scheme of using her non-government organizations to carry out ghost projects to amass kickbacks from lawmakers’ priority development assistance funds, it said.
“To reiterate, by preponderance of evidence, the People was able to establish, that the proceeds of the different SAROs involved in this case were transferred to several NGOs under the control of Napoles, as recipients of the public funds, and that the PDAF projects which these NGOs had supposedly implemented were ghost or fictitious projects,” it said.
The Sandiganbayan also sentenced Napoles to up to 53 years’ imprisonment for five counts of corruption of public officials for giving bribe money to Estrada and his Deputy Chief of Staff Pauline Therese Mary Labayen, and ordered her to pay a fine of P29.625 million.
It also sentenced her to up to more than nine years’ imprisonment for another two counts of corruption of public officials for giving bribe money to Estrada through Ruby Tuason.
Napoles was acquitted of plunder along with Estrada because the prosecution failed to prove that the Senator amassed at least P50 million in ill-gotten wealth from the PDAF transactions.
But in holding Napoles civilly liable for P262 million, the Sandiganbayan said the prosecution was able to present evidence to show that the proceeds of special allotment release orders from Estrada’s PDAF were transferred to Napoles’ NGOs, which then implemented ghost or fictitious projects.
It cited the testimony of witness Benhur Luy that he submitted fake liquidation documents for these PDAF projects, as well as the testimony of witnesses that they did not benefit from the supposed PDAF projects.
It also noted that Napoles did not present any evidence of memorandum in her defense.
The court also convicted Napoles of corruption of public officials for depositing P1 million in Estrada’s account in September 2008 and for giving P8.875 million in kickbacks to Labayen on four different dates.
Even if Labayen is a fugitive, the court said Napoles may already be held liable for their transactions, it said.
“Simultaneous conviction of the bribe-giver and the corrupted official, under Art. 212 and Art. 210, respectively, is not required,” it said.
Napoles was also convicted of another two counts of corruption of public officials for the indirect bribery of Estrada through Tuason.
Tuason had testified that she delivered to Estrada P1.5 million and P4.2 million from Napoles.
The Sandiganbayan said it does not matter even if Estrada returned the money later since the crime was already consummated when he received the amount.
Napoles has already been convicted of plunder for the misuse of the PDAF of Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. and is serving her sentence.
She has also been convicted of other criminal charges in connection with the scheme.
