THE Sandiganbayan has denied an appeal by a former chief of staff of then senator- now presidential legal counsel Juan Ponce Enrile to have her plunder case dismissed in connection with the pork barrel scam.
The anti-graft court said appellant Jessica Lucila Reyes raised no new arguments in her motion for reconsideration to warrant the reversal of the September 19 resolution.
The anti-graft court’s Third Division in a minute resolution dated Oct. 17 denied the motion of Jessica Lucila Reyes for leave to file a demurrer to evidence, thus ordering her to present her defense.
A demurrer to evidence is a plea to the court to dismiss outright a case, based solely on the evidence presented by the prosecution.
Court records showed that Reyes repeatedly denied “the existence of conspiracy as a manner of incurring criminal liability” but decried partiality when Enrile was allowed to file his demurrer to evidence.
“While accused Reyes assails the alleged presence of conspiracy in this case, she now asserts the very same concept of conspiracy in her motion for reconsideration to entitle herself to file the intended demurrer to evidence,” the Sandiganbayan noted.
The anti-graft court said the presentation of defense evidence for Reyes’ case will be held on November 7 and 9, 2023, both at 2 p.m. and every Tuesday and Thursday thereafter, as previously scheduled.
Reyes is accused of receiving on then Senator Enrile’s behalf a total of P172.83 million worth of kickbacks in exchange for her boss’s allocation of pork barrel funds to the fake non-government organization.
