Yuyee’s 15-year jail term stands
Former actress and model Chatchaya Cuesta Ramos, 44, better known as Yuyee, will finally have to serve 15 years and three months in jail after the Supreme Court rejected her appeal against the sentence.
The Supreme Court’s decision was announced yesterday at the Criminal Court on Ratchadaphisek Road.
Chatchaya, formerly known as Alisa Inthusamit, was arrested on Nov 10, 2012 at Don Mueang airport after immigration police found 251 milligrammes of cocaine in her suitcase.
The former actress had just returned from Vietnam when she was caught with the drugs.
She was charged with illegal possession and smuggling a Type-2 narcotic drug into the country.
The Criminal Court on June 12, 2014 found her guilty and sentenced her to 20 years in jail and fined her 2 million baht.
The prison sentence was, however, commuted to 15 years and a fine of 1.5 million baht because Chatchaya had provided statements deemed beneficial to the legal proceedings.
An additional prison term of three months and a 2,000-baht fine handed down earlier in a separate case was added to the June 12, 2014 sentence as requested by the Min Buri Court, which convicted her of smuggling protected wildlife into the country.
Later in September, 2015, the Appeal Court upheld the lower court’s decision, which prompted Chatchaya to appeal against the sentence to the Supreme Court.
She has been denied bail since the day the Criminal Court handed down its sentence up until the Supreme Court’s rejection of her appeal.
All three courts have rejected her requests for the same reason — that she was likely to flee if released on bail.
In total, she has now been detained for two years and nine months.
Yuyee and her husband Francisco Ramos, a Spanish TV presenter for the Discovery Channel, have always claimed she was framed by an influential person they had angered by setting free animals held by wildlife traffickers.
A justice4Yuyee campaign was launched in Spain, the homeland of Yuyee’s husband, to support Chatchaya.
She argued the 15-year jail penalty was too severe given the small amount of narcotics founded in her possession.