Court junks Jinggoy’s plea to drop graft raps

FOR LACK of merit, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan’s Fifth Division denied former senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada’s plea to dismiss and subsume these under a separate plunder case in connection with the Priority Development

The court pointed out that the plunder case rests on the alleged accumulation of ill-gotten wealth while the graft cases rest on the issues of alleged undue injury caused to the government and advantage given to private persons through evident bad faith and

“These two different issues involve distinct elements and facts, punishable under two different statutes,” it said in a seven-page resolution, adding that each of the 11 graft charges involves a distinct transaction and different sets of

to dismiss the graft cases, as he argued that these were deemed

But the court agreed with the prosecution that the fact that the charges arose from the same acts did not justify Estrada’s argument

The prosecution, it said, correctly pointed out that “Criminal liability under both laws can be prosecuted independently because they have ‘fundamentally diverse

Estrada insisted that a motion to dismiss was the proper remedy for the “mischief and folly” of the which were already “absorbed” in

But the court held in part, “Trial has not even started in these cases

Associate Justice Rafael Lagos penned the ruling, which was concurred in by Associate Justice Roland Jurado, who leads the court’s Fifth Division, and Associate Justice Maria Theresa

Estrada is detained at the Phil Center over the graft charges and the P183-million plunder case he is facing in connection with the

who were charged by the Of 2014 at the Sandiganbayan, along with businesswoman Janet Lim

The other two senators were Center, and former senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who is out on on