CIDG lawyer accuses American businessman of 4 criminal acts

A lawyer of the Criminal Intelligence and Detection Group yesterday filed at the Cebu City prosecutor's office four criminal charges against American businessman Robert Browning, who owns several Internet cafés in the city.

Lawyer Inocencio Dela Cerna accused Browning of grave threats, grave oral defamation, malicious mischief, and damage to property.

Dela Cerna alleged that, last November 21, Browning and two armed men barged into his office in Tango Plaza Building on Queen's Road and threw away the office chairs, candleholders and other furniture items even in the presence of the lawyer's 9-year-old son.

Browning's fit might have been caused after Dela Cerna ordered the confiscation of two advertising streamers of Browning and lawyer Ed Gobonsing, the owner of the Edago Live Wire Café.

Dela Cerna is the administrator of the Capuras building where the Internet cafés of Browning and Gobonsing are situated. The two had been quarreling over the placement of their streamers.

"I instinctively stood up, however, he clearly said to me and uttered the words 'I will kill you, I will kill you', while retreating to his bodyguards and going out of my office, banging and damaging the door and the main door," said Dela Cerna in his 2-page affidavit complaint.

Dela Cerna said he estimated the damage cost caused by Browning at P20,000. He further said he will verify from the CIDG whether the two bodyguards of the American were regular members of the Police Regional Office-7.

Gobonsing, meanwhile, said he will file also a complaint against Browning at the Bureau of Immigration for insulting the Filipinos by allegedly saying, "Filipinos are stupid moneys." - Ramil V. Ayuman/RAE