Court of Appeals (File photo)
MANILA – The Court of Appeals has upheld the life imprisonment sentence imposed by the Taguig City court on a Portuguese national and a Filipina who were found guilty of running a cybersex den in Angeles City in 2008.
In a 16-page decision dated October 15 and written by Associate Justice Ramon Cruz, the CA Eleventh Division upheld the 2019 ruling of Taguig Regional Trial Court Branch 266 that sentenced Portuguese Jorge Manuel P. Ribiero (a.k.a. George Smith) and Rowena Pineda for qualified trafficking in persons and fined them PHP3 million each and additional PHP600,000 in damages.
A third accused, Maricel Sebastian, remains at large.
The case arose from the complaint of "Maritess", a Taguig resident who claimed she was recruited on June 10, 2008 to work at an internet cafe.
She was then transferred to three apartments operating as cybersex dens in Barangay Bagong Bayan and Cutcut, Angeles City.
Maritess was forced to perform sexual acts before online clients via website livejasmin.com.
She escaped later on when she was directed to accompany a minor co-worker to a bus terminal in Dau, where she sought police assistance.
The CA said the accused's defense that the complainant "was not deprived of liberty when she stayed in the apartment, which turned out to be a cybersex den, is irrelevant" because under the law, trafficking in persons is committed with or without the victim's consent or knowledge.
The court said photos and files in the convicts’ computer of naked women posing in front of a camera or performing sexual acts among themselves "indubitably strengthens the case of the prosecution because the accused were indeed maintaining a cybersex den and sexually exploited several women". (PNA)
