(Eagle News)–The Department of Justice will refile the estafa charges it filed against Wellmed owner Bryan Sy and several others over the ghost dialysis mess, but which were junked by a Quezon City regional trial court.
“No harm done,” Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said.
According to Guevarra, “we were actually withdrawing the information filed with the regional trial court (RTC), but were overtaken by the court’s order.”
In dismissing the charges for lack of jurisdiction, the QC RTC said it was done “without prejudice” to their refiling in the metropolitan trial court, which it said was the proper venue for charges with a maximum penalty of six years imprisonment and below.
The RTC noted that the maximum penalty for estafa through falsification of public documents and where the defrauded amount does not exceed P40,000 is six years imprisonment.
According to Guevarra, they decided to file for a withdrawal of the information upon learning the evidence they were waiting for from the National Bureau of Investigation was “not forthcoming.”
Apart from Sy, facing the charges are whistleblowers and former Wellmed employees Liezel Aileen de Leon and Edwin Roberto, and other Jane and John Does.
De Leon and Roberto have been provisionally admitted to the Department of Justice’s Witness Protection Program.
