Suspects admitted theft: Couple charged for taking jewelry

CEBU, Philippines – Finding probable cause, the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor has indicted a woman and her live-in partner for allegedly stealing pieces of jewelry from her mother’s employer.

Associate prosecution attorney Jennifer Karen Alo-Leyson held Kiarra Grekka Yamuta and Renante Abahante for trial for the crime of theft.

“The uncontroverted allegations sufficiently engender a finding of probable cause that respondents committed the unlawful taking of complainant’s belongings,” read the resolution.

Leyson recommended P40,000 bail for each suspect.

In her complaint, Ria Bulotano, a resident of Barangay Sambag I, Cebu City, alleged that on December 20, 2014, at around 9 p.m., Yamuta connived with her spouse Abahante and stole her pieces of jewelry, cellular phone and emergency lamp amounting to P130,000.

Bulotano said Yamuta was someone she trusts because she had known her for sometime because her mother was her stay-in helper for seven years.

The complainant’s belongings were taken from her room.

Bulotano alleged she learned about the thievery from the couple themselves who admitted through a text message that they were the ones who stole the items and that they would pay her on installment basis.

Leyson summoned Yamuta and Abahante to submit their respective counter-affidavits, but the two failed.

The prosecutor found sufficient evidence to hold the two for trial.

Such actuation of Yamuta and Abahante sending text message to Bulotano admitting the theft, Leyson said, does not naturally come from an innocent person.

“An innocent person will at once naturally and emphatically repel an accusation of crime, as a matter of self-preservation and as precaution against prejudicing himself,” read the resolution. —/NSA (FREEMAN)