Extort suspect caught in NBI entrapment ops

Female Facebook users may want to learn from this.

Charges of robbery with extortion were filed yesterday against a 24-year-old male accused of blackmailing a 16-year-old Filipino-Japanese female student whom he befriended through Facebook yesterday.

John Jayson Antonio, a resident of barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City, was arrested in an entrapment operation by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas (NBI-7) inside a mall last Tuesday afternoon.

Charges of robbery extortion in relation to Republic Act 7610 or the Anti-Child Abuse Law were lodged against Antonio before the Cebu City Prosecutors’ Office yesterday.

Antonio, who didn’t have a lawyer when he was presented before Asst. City Prosecutor Mario Ley Gidayawan for an inquest proceeding, opted not to undergo a preliminary investigation.

The charges will be elevated to a Regional Trial Court today. When sought for comment Antonio, who’s detained at the NBI-7 detention cell, covered his face with a white towel and refused to talk.

But he confessed to the NBI-7, saying he made up all the stories to extort money and demand sexual favors from the victim.

Antonio’s mother, a private high school teacher, is the victim’s school adviser.

NBI-7 Agent Bernard dela Cruz said Antonio used names like “Jhenrick de Jesus, Hayumi Zayura and Derick” to cover his identity while contacting the student.

The victim said Antonio, using the name Hayumi, asked her to send him seminude photos of her through e-mail.

Knowing that she modeled, Antonio promised to help the victim, Dela Cruz said.

She said Hayumi was a Facebook friend whom she never met. She said the seminude photos were uploaded to Hayumi’s iPhone.

Last November 2011, Dela Cruz said Antonio told the victim that the iPhone got lost.

The victim said she was worried because the lost iPhone contained her nude photos. She texted the iPhone’s number and demanded for its return to Hayumi.

However, the victim got a text message that states, “Bayri sa 10K, ug dili ka mobayad, ako ikatag ang seminude pictures ninyo.” (Pay P10,000 otherwise your nude photos will be spread out.)

The victim said she was also told by the person who got the iPhone that she may pay P5,000 but it should include “romance.”

Last January 2012, the victim got another demand from a “Jhenrick de Jesus” through a Facebook message.

Jhenrick was purportedly demanding from the victim a DSLR camera in exchange for the return of the seminude photos.

The victim said they eventually agreed that she’ll pay P15,000.

The victim said she was forced to steal her classmate’s iPod to raise money and was told by Antonio to give the iPod to a certain Derick. She said she only paid from the theft of the iPod.

She said Derick allegedly tried to shoulder the P13,000 balance.

But the victim demanded for the return of the iPod since the loss of the gadget was discovered by school authorities.

“I am very worried that my nude photos will be posted to the Internet or somebody might know what I did. So I was forced to give Jhenrick through Derick, a camera, violin, earrings, Walkman and money,” she said in her affidavit.

Last March 6, the victim sought the NBI-7’s assistance that planned the entrapment on the afternoon of the same day.

The victim and the agents went to the Food Court of Ayala Mall in Cebu City where the payoff was agreed upon.

The agreement was for Derick to return the iPod from Jherick and the nude photos in exchange for P15,000.

When the transaction took place, the agents approached Antonio and arrested him.

The NBI-7 learned that it was Antonio who used the aliases of Hayumi, Jhenrick and Direck.

The agents led by Dela Cruz recovered from the respondent’s USB several seminude photos of the victim.

Copies of the seminude photos were attached in the complaint filed by the NBI-7 before the prosecutors’ office.