The youngest brother of alleged car theft syndicate leaders Raymond and Roger Dominguez is now the new head of the group, according to the chief of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) anticar theft unit.
Ryan Dominguez, 20, inherited the position when the older brothers were arrested one after the other, said Superintendent Ferdinand Villanueva, citing statements from other members of the Dominguez group who were arrested in Bulacan last year.
“Based on those statements, Ryan now calls the shots,” Villanueva told the Inquirer Friday as authorities firmed up their cases against the young Dominguez in connection with last week’s killing of a state witness against his brothers and with Tuesday’s raid in Malolos City on the syndicate’s alleged hideout.
Villanueva said that since succeeding his brothers, Ryan had been assisted by one Eduardo Talban, a suspect in the brutal killing of a yoga teacher.
The statements pointing to Ryan as the new leader of the group came from Antonio Garcia, 40; Rominck Estrella, 22; and Arnel Torres, 47, all residents of Calumpit, Bulacan, the officer added.
Apart from the murder charges in connection with the killing of state witness Alfred Mendiola and two other men on Sunday, Ryan is being indicted for four other crimes, the Bulacan police said Friday.
Ryan allegedly offered P3 million to Bulacan policemen for the charges to be dropped following his arrest and that of three other people in Malolos City on Tuesday, according to the provincial police director, Senior Supt. Fernando Mendez Jr.
Mendez said the Quezon City police had taken charge of the car-theft charges being readied against Ryan, while the Bulacan police were drawing up the bribery charge.
Two more charges—for possession of unlicensed firearms and of illegal drugs—have been filed in the Malolos Prosecutor’s Office.
Also on Friday in Camp Crame, the Philippine National Police stressed that it had sufficient evidence to link the younger Dominguez to the deaths of Mendiola, Mark Angelo Heredia and Eriberto Jumaquio, who were found dead, gagged and bound in Dasmarinas, Cavite, on May 6.
Mendiola used to be under the government’s witness protection program as the main witness against Raymond and Roger Dominguez, but he left the program days before his death.
The two brothers are facing car theft with homicide charges for the killing of car dealers Venson Evangelista and Emerson Lozano in January last year. They also face several other cases being heard in Bulacan, Pampanga and Metro Manila.
PNP chief Director General Nicanor Bartolome on Friday said that of the four shells recovered from the Cavite crime scene, two shells matched with the .45-cal. pistol recovered from Ryan and his companions James Jimenez, Mark Lacambakal and Rey Blanco during a raid in Malolos, Bulacan, on May 8.
The PNP chief also said two slugs recovered from the body of victim Jumaquio matched with the .45-cal. pistols recovered from Dominguez and Jimenez.
“So we now have two shells and two slugs that match the .45-cal. pistols. Because of this latest development, we are now preparing to file a multiple murder case against these four suspects for the killing of Alfred Mendiola, Eriberto Jumaquio and Mark Heredia,” Bartolome told reporters.
“I am very satisfied with the way (the investigation) is going on now. Slowly we are discovering scientific results,” Bartolome said.
The May 8 raid on Ryan and company’s alleged hideout in Malolos yielded two M-16 rifles, two handguns and hand grenades. Police said they also found a stolen Toyota Innova van (ZCJ-171), a Nissan Navarra and a black Subaru, as well as an undetermined amount of shabu in the place.
As of Friday, Ryan Dominguez, Jimenez, Lakambakal and Blanco were being held at the Bulacan police office in Camp General Alejo Santos in Malolos.
Lawyer Jose Cruz, counsel for the two elder Dominguez brothers, visited Ryan on Tuesday, but said he could not yet say whether he would be officially representing the third sibling in court.
“Maybe (because this is another] sensational case. We need additional lawyers. I’m already overloaded with the cases of his two brothers,” Cruz told the Inquirer.
But Cruz said he would try to prevent Ryan from falling into what he called a trap designed to implicate him in the Mendiola killing. “For the meantime, that poor boy Ryan has to stay in jail. Welcome to the justice system,” he said.