Deguito to file motion for reconsideration against guilty verdict
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2019 06:36:04 +0000
THE former manager of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) convicted for eight counts of money laundering will appeal to reverse the Makati court’s decision on Friday, her lawyer said.
Demetrio Custodio said his client, Maia Deguito, was facing four to seven years of imprisonment for each of the eight counts “so we will take a look and determine now our proper course of action but right now, we are going to file a motion for reconsideration.”
Custodio said he was confident that Deguito has “very good” ground to file the motion but emphasized that the case would follow a very long process.
He also said that Deguito’s case was just a momentary setback.
Judge Cesar Untalan of Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 149 recently convicted Deguito and ordered her to pay a fine of $109 million.
Deguito was the manager of RCBC branch along Jupiter Street in Makati City, where $81 million from the Bangladesh Bank were deposited into five accounts, mostly under fictitious names.
Hackers allegedly stole $81 million in February 2016 from the Bangladesh central bank’s account with the US Federal Reserve in New York and transferred to the RCBC Jupiter Branch, which were quickly withdrawn and laundered through local casinos.
Custodio said Deguito and her camp remained optimistic that her name would be “cleared” and that the court was wrong to convict her client.
“We’re still finalizing our motion. But we will file it within office hours tomorrow. We will ask the court to reverse its earlier decision dahil mali ang naging ruling ng court (because the ruling of the court was wrong.),” he said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has yet to resolve the cases filed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) against former RCBC treasurer Raul Victor Tan and national sales director for retail banking Ismael Reyes.
The AMLC also filed charges against Brigitte Capiña, RCBC regional sales director for retail banking; Nestor Pineda, direct sales director; Romualdo Agarrado, customer service head for Jupiter business center; and Angela Ruth Torres, senior customer relations officer for Jupiter business center. NEIL JAYSON N. SERVALLOS
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