Deniece Cornejo surrenders

Deniece Cornejo ended her brief stint as a fugitive on Monday afternoon, May 5, as she surrendered to Philippine National Police Director-General Alan L. Purisima. The model reportedly showed up at Camp Crame at around 4 p.m. and proceeded to Purisima’s office.

Cornejo was said to be accompanied by her granduncle, Rod, whose statement had been read on Buzz ng Bayan on Sunday, May 4. It was he who had appealed to her to surrender.

After the brief stopover at Purisima’s office, Cornejo was then transported via a coaster to the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) building, where she was processed under the Women and Children Protection Desk.

At around 7 p.m., Cornejo was temporarily detained at CIDG’s Anti-Transnational Crime Unit. She shared a detention cell with a number of female inmates.

On Tuesday, May 6, she was brought to the Taguig Regional Trial Court.

Rape allegations

Cornejo first went public in January, when she accused actor Vhong Navarro of raping her at the Forbeswood Heights condo unit in Taguig.

Cornejo later said that her friends—businessman Cedric Lee, his sister Benice Lee, Ferdinand Guerrero, Jed Fernandez, Zimmer Raz, and JP Calma—had rescued her from Navarro.

The group later said they roughed up Navarro in their efforts to keep him away from Cornejo. Navarro, on the other hand, claimed that the group had attacked him despite the lack of provocation and that they had even attempted to blackmail him.

The Department of Justice has since junked the rape case Cornejo filed against Navarro. In a 42-page resolution dated April 4, 2014, the DOJ stated that “it was very difficult to comprehend how Navarro could have raped Cornejo, noting that there was not even a single scratch on the model.”

Navarro later filed grave coercion and serious illegal detention cases against Cornejo and the rest of her group.

Arrests, confusion, and brief escapes

On April 10, Judge Bernard Pineda Bernal of Taguig Municipal Trial Court (MTC) Branch 74 issued arrest warrants for the grave coercion charge against Cornejo and the rest of their group. Bail was set at P12,000. The NBI was informed of the warrant on April 14.

Cornejo and Fernandez posted bail shortly after the warrant was issued.

Calma, due to the confusion over his name, managed to leave the country for Singapore on April 10.

Guerrero, on other hand, was prevented by immigration officers from getting on a flight to Hong Kong on April 14.

For his part, Lee had reportedly booked an April 12 flight to Dubai, but the booking was subsequently cancelled.

On April 21, the arrest warrants for the serious illegal detention charge were issued by Judge Paz Esperanza Cortes of the Taguig Regional Trial Court Branch 271 against Lee, Raz, and three others in connection with the serious illegal detention case filed by Navarro. Calma and Cedric’s sister, Bernice, were excluded from this charge, which is a non-bailable offense.

Bernice was arrested for the grave coercion charge on the evening of April 21 at her home in San Juan City. She spent the night in detention at the NBI headquarters. She posted bail on April 22.

Lee and Raz, who were arrested on April 26 in a remote town in Samar, were brought back to Manila on April 27.