Charges vs Sotto, car buyer dropped

The Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office has affirmed its ruling junking the estafa charges Sen. Vicente Sotto III filed against a  buyer of his luxury car, as well as the countercharges the man filed against him.

City prosecutor Donald Lee denied the appeals of both  the senator and that of Rico Roque Alpapara, saying he was not convinced with their arguments.

Lee said the motions for reconsideration of the two parties were mere repetitions of their initial complaints against each other.

“We find nothing therein that would warrant the reconsideration, let alone the reversal of our earlier findings,” part of the ruling read.

The resolution was dated Sept. 6, 2011 but was only released to media this week.

The legal tussle stemmed from an estafa case Sotto filed against Alpapara, who wanted to buy the senator’s BMW in 2010.

Alpapara  countered by filing perjury and libel charges against the senator, who reportedly made libelous statements against him in a noontime show.

In August last year, Assistant City Prosecutor Ferdinand Baylon cleared Sotto of the two charges.

He also dismissed the estafa charges lodged against Alpapara despite the businessman’s  failure to attend a preliminary investigation.

This led both parties to file  separate motions for reconsideration, arguing that Baylon erred in not finding probable cause in the charges they filed against each other.

“It bears stressing that the motions, although worded differently, are facsimiles of the parties’ allegations in their respective pleadings,” the city prosecutor said.

Lee affirmed Baylon’s findings that Sotto could not have committed libel in uttering statements pertaining to Alpapara in a noontime show, as the latter failed to prove malice in the statements.

The city prosecutor also  agreed with Baylon that there was no estafa committed by Alpapara, given the factual circumstances of the case.