BUDDIES IN CUFFS Cedric Lee and friend Simeon “Zimmer” Raz leave the NBI main office in Manila for Wednesday’s arraignment in the Taguig City Regional Trial Court. JOAN BONDOC
Businessman Cedric Lee and mixed martial arts practitioner Simeon “Zimmer” Raz refused to enter a plea when arraigned Wednesday in the Taguig City Regional Trial Court for the serious illegal detention case filed against them and three others by comedian and TV host Vhong Navarro.
Judge Paz Esperanza Cortes of RTC Branch 271 entered a plea of not guilty on their behalf. Earlier, Lee and Raz’s lawyers withdrew their motion to have the arraignment deferred.
Navarro did not attend the proceedings, which set the trial in motion more than three months after the beatings he allegedly suffered at the hands of Lee and his friends.
The ABS-CBN star has accused Lee, Raz, model Deniece Cornejo, Sajed “Jed Fernandez” Abuhijleh and Ferdinand Guerrero of mauling him and setting him up for blackmail on the night Navarro visited Cornejo at her Forbeswood Heights condo unit in Bonifacio Global City.
Cornejo earlier sued Navarro for allegedly raping her during the Jan. 22 visit, and claimed that Lee and the others came to her rescue and carried out a citizen’s arrest on Navarro. The DOJ later dismissed the rape complaint—the first of two she had filed against the actor—for lack of merit.
Of the accused, only Lee and Raz have been arrested for the nonbailable offense of serious illegal detention. Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation caught up with the two men in Eastern Samar province on April 26, five days after the Taguig RTC issued the warrants of arrest.
On Tuesday, Cortes ordered Lee and Raz to be moved from NBI custody to the Taguig city jail in Camp Bagong Diwa, but the judge suspended the order hours later after defense lawyer Howard Calleja filed a motion asking that his two clients be allowed to remain at the NBI main office in Manila.
In an interview after the arraignment, state prosecutor Hazel Valdez said the court would hear on May 6 Lee’s motion for continued detention at the NBI and another motion to post bail.
Navarro’s lawyer, Alma Mallonga, said “we should all be happy that the case is moving” but declined to make further comment, noting that the court had advised the opposing parties to avoid discussing the case in the media.
Earlier on Wednesday, Navarro’s camp also submitted a supplemental counter-affidavit responding to the second rape complaint filed by Cornejo in the Taguig prosecutor’s office late in February, wherein it was alleged that she was also raped by Navarro at her condo unit on Jan. 17.
The hearing on Cornejo’s second complaint is set on May 9.