Disgusting

Raul Gonzalez and her prosecutors are a disgrace:

From the start, it was already evident that the Gloria administration was out to weaken and lose the case lodged by the alleged rape victim, “Nicole,” against the American servicemen.

Despite the witnesses’ accounts, including that of the van driver, which bolstered the rape complaint, the Justice department (DoJ) dropped the driver as a principal accused — along with three other US servicemen — after the driver recanted his first affidavit. Notably, the DoJ did not even move to charge the driver with perjury.

Even much earlier, the Gloria government did not move to take the accused US servicemen into custody, when it could have done so, even under the Visiting Forces Agreement forged with the United States.

Still, the fight for justice continued and was largely carried on by Nicole’s private lawyer, Evelyn Ursua, who did well for her client in the first prosecution in the trial stage.

Suddenly, however, when it came to cross-examination time for the prosecution, it was the state prosecutors who insisted on taking over, and it was clear that they were out to botch up their case as they did such a horrible cross-examination job.

This was also the time Nicole’s mother went public with her claim that state prosecutor Emilie delos Santos had urged her to settle the rape case with the American servicemen as the rape case would just be used in exchange for Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante’s immigration case in the US.

Nicole and her mother asked for a change of prosecutors, save for one, a plea which was quickly denied by Justice chief Raul Gonzalez, saying Nicole has no right to dictate to the DoJ who should be prosecuting the case. Delos Santos was kept on, despite the fact that she had publicly called Nicole a liar and Ursua a communist ally. Delos Santos should have resigned from the prosecution panel, knowing that her client had no confidence in her. Besides which, Delos Santos did something very unethical as she not only destroyed her client’s testimony by calling her a liar, but also insisted on going on with the case, and ensuring that more damage would be done to the prosecution’s case, by not going into the presentation of rebuttal witnesses, if only to impeach the testimonies of the US servicemen who had taken the stand.

Worse for Delos Santos and her team, the only one in the team who continued to enjoy the confidence of Nicole, went public to state that there was absolutely no discussion among the prosecution team on Delos Santos’ move rejecting a rebuttal, thus leaving the testimonies of the accused unimpeached, which only goes to show that there truly was a deliberate move on the part of the state prosecutors to ensure that Nicole would lose the rape case, and the Americans would walk.

It really is no different from a llamado boxer taking a dive — except that in the boxer’s case, he is no lawyer and is not sworn to do his best for his client.

To make it clear: This is not to say the accused Americans are guilty of having been accomplices to the rape of Nicole, or to say Daniel Smith, accused of raping Nicole, is guilty.

Similarly, this is also not to say Nicole was lying about the rape and that she had consensual sex, although from witnesses’ accounts that described her mental and dress state after they dumped her and sped off, and considering the circumstances surrounding that incident, consensual sex is too difficult to believe.

But this is instead to say the state prosecutors did their all to lose the case of their client, which is really disgraceful of them and of their legal profession.

Tsk tsk.