Court acquits Fil-Aussie ‘drug mule’

Filipino-Australian Dorotea Ausan Moyes, whom the police tagged as a drug courier, stayed in jail in the past two months after she was caught inside a hotel in Cebu City for allegedly carrying P11 million worth of illegal drugs.

The 62-year-old nursing assistant cried yesterday after Regional Trial Court Branch 9 Judge Alexander Acosta acquitted her of drug charges.

“I thank you, Judge,” Moyes said after the promulgation of the case, but Acosta stopped her as he was about to hear other cases.

The accused’s hands trembled as she held a copy of the decision. Her relatives hugged her.

“I am so thankful to the people who believe in me since day one,” said Moyes in an interview with reporters.

Last Jan. 27, a team from Cebu City Police Station 2 arrested Moyes after she turned over a bag of 1.1 kilo of suspected shabu to the hotel she was staying in Barangay Kamputhaw.

The bag was given to Moyes by a man---reportedly a friend of Andrew Wood, the “boyfriend” she was supposed to meet in person for the first time in Japan. Wood and Moyes met on Facebook last October.

Moyes entered a not guilty plea during her arraignment last March 8.

Acosta, in his decision, believed in Moyes, who said she had no

knowledge on the bag’s contents.

“Her testimony is indeed within the realm of human experience and observation of men. It reveals her consistency throughout, her steadfastness. The Court could not but note her sincerity

and candor, bespeaking truthfulness and reliability,” the decision read.

The testimonies of hotel guard Romeo Salvacion and SPO3 Darius Dionysios Libanan corroborated with Moyes’s testimony, proving

that she “has no knowledge of the existence of the prohibited drugs” in the bag, the decision further read.

Moyes’s counsel Atty. Danica Patricia Caputol of Rojo and Associates said they were glad the

court believed in the truthfulness of the accused’s testimony.

Acosta ordered the immediate release of Moyes from Cebu City Jail-Female Dorm and the destruction of illegal drugs seized by the police.

SUNSTAR FOTO / RUEL ROSELLO ACQUITTAL. Fil-Australian Dorotea Ausan Moyes cries with relief as she is being comforted by her lawyer, Danica Patricia Caputol, upon hearing the Regional Trial Court acquit her of a drug charge.