SC disbars ex-Pangasinan prosecutor for practicing law despite bribery conviction

The Supreme Court has disbarred a former Pangasinan public prosecutor who was caught still practicing law despite being convicted for bribery four years ago.

In an eight-paged resolution dated July 21, the high court en banc, voting 13-0, disbarred former Dagupan City assistant prosecutor Joselito Barrozo and ordered his name stricken from the roll of attorneys.

According to court records, Barrozo was arrested following an entrapment operation conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation in February 2005. The prosecutor was caught accepting a P20,000 bribe from the respondent in the estafa cases he was handling.

In March 2011, the antigraft court Sandiganbayan found Barrozo guilty of direct bribery and sentenced him four to nine years in prison and a fine of P60,000. He elevated his case to the Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal and ruled his conviction final in August 2012.

In October 2013, the Supreme Court’s Office of the Bar Confidant received a letter from a Hong Kong law firm inquiring about the status of Barrozo, who wrote one of the firm’s clients asking for the “long service payment” in behalf of the family of a deceased domestic.

The court’s decision did not state whether or not Barrozo went to prison nor from where he sent the claim letter.

The OBC conducted an investigation and referred the matter to the Supreme Court, which in December 2013 ordered Barrozo to explain why he should not be suspended or disbarred from the practice of law.

Barroso claimed that he was not engaging in the practice of law when he signed the claim letter and that he was only helping claimants free of charge.

The Supreme Court, however, adopted the OBC’s recommendation that he be disbarred.

Conviction for  a crime involving moral turpitude is one of the grounds of disbarment under the rules of court, according to the Supreme Court.

Citing previous rulings, the justices said bribery was considered a crime of moral turpitude although the court retained the discretion of imposing the supreme penalty of disbarment.

The justices ruled that the circumstances in Barrozo’s case, “constrain the Court to impose the penalty of disbarment.”

“It must be recalled that at the time of the commission of the crime, respondent was an assistant public prosecutor of the city of Dagupan. His act therefore of extorting money from a party to a case handled by him does not only violate the requirement that cases must be decided based on the merits of the parties’ respective evidence but also lessens the people’s confidence in the rule of law,” they said.

“For committing a crime which does not only show his disregard of his oath as a government official but is likewise of such a nature as to negatively affect his qualification as a lawyer, respondent must be disbarred from his office as an attorney,|” the justices added.