The immediate relatives of convicted plunderer Janet Lim Napoles on Thursday refused to enter pleas at the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division during their arraignment on the 194 criminal cases filed against them in connection with the alleged P900-million Malampaya fund scam.
Their action prompted Associate Justice Bernelito Fernandez to enter “not guilty” pleas for Napoles’s children Jo Christine and James Christopher and her brothers Reynald and Ronald Francisco Lim.
They are facing 97 counts of graft and 97 counts of malversation of public funds.
Also on Thursday, the anti-graft court also arraigned bank manager Winnie Villanueva, who did not enter any plea like the Napoles’s relatives.
They were accused of diverting P900 million from the Malampaya funds allocated by the Department of Budget and Management to the Department of Agrarian Reform in 2009 and in the process using 12 Janet Lim Napoles-led nongovernment organizations as conduits to the alleged scam.
Napoles, the main figure in the pork barrel scam, members of her family have been facing prosecution for money laundering in a criminal case filed in the United States.
In the charge sheet, the federal grand jury accused Napoles and other defendants of fraudulently converting money from the multibillion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund.
The money was paid to dozens of non-governmental organizations controlled by Napoles and diverted to kickbacks for the legislators and other government officials, and for the personal use of the Napoles family.
About $20 million of those funds were diverted to money remitters in the Philippines and then wired to Southern California bank accounts where the money was used to purchase real estate, shares in two businesses, two Porsche Boxsters, and finance the living expenses of three family members residing in the United States, Jeane Napoles and the Lim couple.
It was reported that about $12.5 million in Southern California real estate has been seized by the US Attorney’s Office and is subject to a civil forfeiture case pending before United States District Judge James V. Selna. If the court orders the assets forfeited, the United States will work with Philippine officials in an attempt to return the stolen funds to the Philippine government.”‹