Sandigan urged to lift hold order vs Janet Lim-Napoles children

MANILA, Philippines — The children of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles asked the Sandiganbayan to allow them to indefinitely stay in the US to personally attend the upcoming trial of their money-laundering cases.

Jo Christine and James Christopher Napoles filed an urgent joint motion filed on Oct. 17, urging the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division to lift the hold departure order (HDO) it issued against them in December 2017 and allow them to go to the US in November.

Through their lawyer Nicole Rose Margaret Jamilla, the Napoles children, however, did not specify their intended date of return to the Philippines, but rather asked the Third Division to allow them to stay in America “until such time that the case pending before the United States District Court be terminated.”

Jo Christine and James Christopher, together with their mother, are each facing 97 counts of graft and 97 counts of the complex crime of malversation of public funds through falsification of public documents in connection with their alleged involvement in the P900-million Malampaya fund scam in 2009.

In their motion, the Napoles siblings said their lawyer Jamilla had received a letter dated Oct. 11, 2018 from US lawyer Patrick Hall who is handling their criminal and civil forfeiture cases pending before the US District Court in California.

In the letter, which the Napoles children attached in their motion, Hall said he and fellow lawyer, a certain Gregory Vega, are set to handle not only the civil forfeiture case against the two siblings but also their criminal cases of conspiracy to commit money laundering and both domestic and international money laundering.

It was in August this year when the US Department of Justice announced that Napoles, her children Jo Christine, James Christopher and Jeane Catherine; her brother Reynaldo and wife Ana Marie have been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to commit money laundering, domestic money laundering and international money laundering.

The US Department of Justice said the investigation revealed that some $20 million amassed from the pork barrel fund scam was transmitted in the US and used by the respondents in purchasing assets, including real property and luxury vehicles.

It said some of the amounts were also withdrawn and used by Jeane Napoles to finance her lifestyle and open a fashion business.

Jeane, the youngest daughter of Napoles, has no pending cases at the Sandiganbayan while her tax evasion cases were already dismissed by the Court of Tax Appeals in December 2017.