Luy cleared in theft case

THE camp of pork barrel scam whistleblower Benhur Luy yesterday said they can now fully focus on prosecuting individuals linked to the scam after a Pasig City court junked the qualified theft case against him.

In a statement, Luy’s lawyer Raji Mendoza lauded Judge Maria Gracia Cadiz-Casaclang of the Pasig City Regional Trial Court (RTC) branch 155 for dismissing the case, saying businesswoman Janet Napoles went to court to get back at his client.

“This case was filed after about four months after it happened and the crux of the decision is that there was not an iota of evidence showing that Benhur received the alleged missing P300,000. We can now focus on the cases against Napoles,” Mendoza said.

Casaclang granted on Wednesday the motion to withdraw information filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which reversed the resolution issued on June 25, 2013 by a Pasig prosecutor that found probable cause to charge Luy for allegedly stealing P300,000 from Napoles.

The money was supposed to be deposited in her bank account on December 18, 2012.

Luy denied pocketing her former boss’ money as he accused of Napoles of harassing him after he filed a serious illegal detention case against the businesswoman and her brother Reynald Lim last year.

The scam’s principal witness was allegedly kept against his will from December 20, 2012 until his rescue by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents on March 22, 2013 due to his knowledge of Napoles’ racket of siphoning off multi-billion peso pork barrel allocations through ghost projects of her bogus foundations.