The Supreme Court has affirmed the 2013 decision of the Court of Appeals downgrading the charges against controversial property developer Delfin Lee from syndicated estafa to simple estafa, in connection with the alleged anomalous housing projects of his firm Globe Asiatique in Pampanga worth P6.6 billion.
With this ruling, the SC allowed Lee to post bail after over four years of detention at the Pampanga provincial jail after he was charged in court with syndicated estafa.
“The Court downgraded the offense that respondent Delfin Lee is charged with from syndicated estafa under Article 315, as amended, to simple estafa. As a consequence, the respondent Lee, who is the accused in the cases below, is entitled to bail as a matter of right,” the Court, through spokesman Theodore Te, said.
Voting 7-5 with two abstentions during the en banc session Tuesday, the justices resolved to dismiss the petition filed in 2014 by the Department of Justice and Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) seeking reversal of the appellate court ruling.
The SC also lifted the temporary restraining order it issued in March 2014 that prevented Lee’s release from the jail as ordered by the appellate court.
The high tribunal has yet to release copies of the main decision as well as different opinions pending signatures of justices.
It also has not revealed the votes of the magistrates.
The SC made the ruling after resetting deliberations on the case over 20 times since June 2015.
Lee was indicted for syndicated estafa charges for allegedly defrauding the government of P6.6 billion in housing loan proceeds for home buyers, whom investigators later found to be fictitious or had incomplete documents.
However, the businessman persistently sought reliefs from courts and eventually secured a favorable ruling from the special 15th division of the appellate court in November 2013, which lifted the arrest warrant issued against him by the Pampanga regional trial court branch 42.
The appellate court had sided with Lee’s argument that he could no longer be prosecuted for non-bailable charge of syndicated estafa following the dismissal of charges against two of his co-accused, Pag-IBIG Fund foreclosure manager Alex Alvarez and GA documentation head Christina Sagun.
With the dismissal of the complaint against Alvarez and Sagun, which left Lee and GA vice president Dexter Lee and accounting head Cristina Salagan as three remaining accused, the CA held that the crime of syndicated estafa mught no longer apply against the remaining accused since the law requires at least five accused in a syndicated estafa case.
The DoJ and Pag-IBIG questioned the CA’s ruling before the SC and secured the TRO.
Lee was arrested on March 6, 2014 by elements of the Philippine National Police Task Force Tugis at the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel in Manila by virtue of a warrant of arrest issued by the Pampanga RTC Branch 42 in connection with the Pag-IBIG housing loan scam where Lee allegedly used “ghost borrowers” for GA’s housing projects.
