Jinggoy wants ‘redundant’ raps dropped

Jinggoy Estrada, currently detained in Camp Crame due to his alleged involvement in the PDAF scam votes in Xavier School after being given permision by the Comelec INQUIRER PHOTO/ ALEXIS CORPUZ”

Detained Sen. Jinggoy Estrada has petitioned the Sandiganbayan to nullify his indictment on multiple counts of graft in connection with the P10-billion pork barrel scam, saying the offenses were already part of the plunder case he is facing.

“A study of the information…reveals that all of the indictments against Senator Estrada arose out of the very same set of facts and out of the very same transactions,” said Estrada’s plea to the antigraft court’s Fifth Division dated May 18.

“With the proceedings in the plunder indictment and these graft cases so far conducted, it is apparent the transactions in the consolidated graft cases are the very same ones the prosecution is intending to prove in the plunder case,” the motion said.

Estrada, who has been held in a special Camp Crame jail cell since June 2014, has been charged with plunder and 11 counts of graft by the Ombudsman for his alleged receipt of P184 million in kickbacks from alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles.

In his petition, the senator said the disbursement vouchers the Ombudsman presented as evidence in the graft cases were “merely offshoots” of the transactions involving his Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel allotments from 2004 to 2012.

He said the same set of documents was “already the same subject” of his trial for plunder in the Sandiganbayan antigraft court.

“Senator Estrada submits that the indictment in these consolidated graft cases are deemed absorbed by the indictment for plunder and should be dismissed insofar as he is concerned,” the motion read.